#ancient dragon shanks
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My theories about the ancient weapons
So I'm too tired and hormonal to actually create anything at the moment. So I am going to share some of my One Piece theories with you guys. Also, beware this contains spoilers from the manga chapters released as of 6/1/2022
So in regards to the ancient "weapons" so far what we know is that Pluton is a ship, Poseidon is Shirahoshi, and Uranus is unknown (as far as I'm aware).
I've seen lots of theories about Uranus and about what or who it is. I've seen other people's ramblings about the hito hito no mi Model: Nika and joyboy being Uranus. How there was such a big emphasis on how special Momo is, the weapon the celestial dragons have. And the nature of the gods the weapons are named after and the nature of the weapons themselves.
Poseidon is the god of the sea, Pluton is the god of the underworld, and Uranus is the god of the sky. Shirahoshi is a mermaid living in the sea, who can control the sea kings and has the potential to control water with Fishman karate as Poseidon. Pluton is a warship and has no clear connection with the underworld.
The connection could just be a misconception to associate the underworld with death. But Pluton is another name for Hades, who is known to be the wealthiest of the Greek gods and the god of the depths of the earth. And what do you need for a warship? A wealth of resources, especially metal which you need mines for. The name pluton could have been given to the ship to imply that that particular ship will not reappear for it is in the underworld. And seeing as Pluton, the ship itself, has spent the last eight hundred years in the Alabasta desert, it can't be in good condition.
Which connection it is, is not clear to me, but I believe Pluton is obsolete. I think Franky can and will end up building something better. And the ship that Franky builds will become the new Pluton. But like without abandoning Sunny. There is a good chance Shirahoshi is going to reappear with Noah and a fuck ton of sea kings as Poseidon. But Uranus is still shrouded in mystery, and at this moment I do and don't think Luffy is Uranus.
I don't, because Nika is a sun god and commonly in mythology the sun god and the sky god are separate beings. On top of that Luffy's ability comes from a mythical devil fruit, and none of the other mythical fruits are given such important roles. Also, Oda hasn't said dick about Luffy being Uranus, and being true would feel like a cop-out. But we're still in the middle of an important arc. Luffy defeating Kaido is just the peak of the arc, the story still needs the resolution to cool the heat from the battle.
But in many Indo-European religions, the sky god is a leader, the father of the gods, or are associated with rulers also usually an important deity in the religion. Thor is Odinn's son, a key god, and basically a prince. Zeus is the King of the Greek gods, while Jupiter has the same role in the Roman pantheon. I could fucking go on. But if you look at what a King should be, then Luffy has a good chance of being Uranus. He cares for others, he doesn't like injustice. He can move the hearts of many and draws out loyalty and respect in even the worst people without even trying.
There are, however, others I believe could be Uranus.
Momo, because of how much Oda emphasized how special he is, the number of seasons he's been in, and the voice of all things that he possesses.
Morgans, because he is seen openly rebelling against the celestial dragons, and what seems to be an ability to control the birds. He is also a bird himself, associated with the sky like mermaids with water. Also, Morgans has control of the newspaper, over the information. And we all know what kind of storms can form in the wake of bad press. How news outlets can form the opinions of the masses if applied correctly. News can affect the winds of change, and it'd be rather poetic if Oda made Morgans utilize his paper for good considering how the media is utilized in real life.
Then there's Shanks, because of the role of 'father' that I mentioned earlier and thor's father is the King of the gods, and the sky-slicing move as well. But by the 'father' logic, it could also be Dragon. It could also be the weapon the celestial dragons need the ope ope fruit for. A weapon which supposed But that weapon could also be pluton as well because we haven't laid eye on pluton being still in the desert. It's entirely possible that Uranus could also be someone or something we haven't met yet.
But I do believe that all three will be involved in the final arc... so yeah
#one piece#monkey d. luffy#shirahoshi#cyborg franky#Shanks#Dragon#theories#ancient weapons#tma ramblings#from the depths of the dragon's hoard#tma original#6/14/22#no beta we die like men
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What the guard dogs are for
There are some things you never want to hear your secret years-long crush saying, such as “I’m getting married,” “I think we should stay friends” or “I’m the destroyer of the present order, the one who shall judge all gods, and the foe of humanity.”
Wriothesley’s very bad, no good day of trying to unravel conspiracy theories, fumbling a tea party with Chief Justice and learning Teyvat’s ancient history and vishap lore from the leading expert lector.
Genre: angst and misinformation campaign
Characters: Neuvillette\Wriothesley, Enjou
Warnings: sfw in a sense that nothing even remotely sexy happens, but there is dissociation, ptsd episode, brief mention of self-harm, and Enjou doing same thing he does in canon, which is not quite gaslighting? Anyway, let me know if you feel any other warnings need to be added.
Chapters: 1 out of 2. Wordcount: ~8k
With his morning tea, Wriothesley riffled through the reports as usual. Nothing was marked urgent, so he started with the most boring part, - the official ones. The production numbers, coupon consumption statistics, everything is prepared for Neuvillette’s upcoming inspection, which was mostly a formality, but he would want it to go as smoothly as possible.
Reports from the surface informants. Traveler stirring up a ruckus with the research institute… Well, about time, that pit couldn’t go on forever pretending that massive explosions are just a part of science routine.
Next, creatures called “vishaps” appeared recently in Erinnyes Forest. These vishaps are apparently a lesser form of dragons, and connected to Liyue vishaps, also lizard-like creatures, though in Liyue they are aligned with geo, not hydro. Non-hostile to humans, aside from one accident. But in that one they fought back against the hunters sent by nobles to capture them as novelty pets. So the only regrettable part was that they didn’t get the nobles, only their lackeys. For shame.
Next, there are gangs with new lingo going around, which generally was a good thing to pay attention to as they usually ended up in Meropide. Wriothesley frowned, reading the lingo translations, as he suddenly felt old. “Trendy Zaytun Peach” was something he’d got called for taking it up the ass a lot in his days, but now it’s a hip and cool nickname with the youngsters.
Informal internal reports. Victims of beret society are rehabilitating fine, preparations for the wedding are underway. Good. Albert, a new guy from the shop, is sending him tea. Quite good tea at that. Obviously a bribe attempt, though he didn’t ask for anything as of yet, so it was basically free. Everything was fair in love and bribes as far as Wriothesley was concerned. You could throw everything at the feet of your beloved as to the feet of your targeted bureaucrat, and receive nothing and you would have no claim to complain. Now, the fact he wouldn’t take it into account when making decisions about their proposals, and sometimes would even consider it a negative, was a different matter altogether.
He perked up reading the last report. There was a new conspiracy, whose agenda was not very clear, as they were more careful than the others, but the gist was something against Neuvillette, so Wriothesley was tracking it for some time. It was hard to get anything concrete though, as they were pretty good at keeping a low profile, but now apparently one of the members by the name of Jacque got into the Fortress on unrelated charges, and he was reportedly not the brightest shank on the block.
Wriothesley made the arrangements.
Half an hour later, he happened to stroll by when Jacque was being beaten up by three guys in the shadowy corner.
“Hey, what’s going on here? Leave him alone!” he said, walking up to them.
“Oh yeah?”, said one of the bullies, turning to him. “Well, make me!”
They were paid double for the pretend fight. It might have been an overkill, usually Wriothesley would go for just scaring them off without combat. Especially because anyone who’s been in the Fortess for some time or had a head on their shoulders would understand that nobody would try to openly fight the Duke outside of the fight club arena. But Jacque was as fresh as they get, allegedly stupid, and it was Wriothesley’s first chance at any info in two whole months, so he decided to make it as impressive as possible.
He went as easy on the guys as he could, they theatrically threw the fight and retreated.
“Hey, are you okay?” he asked, kneeling next to the guy in the corner and putting his hand on his shoulder for emphasis.
“Yeah, yeah, I think I’m fine,” Jacque muttered, shaking his head.
“Why did they attack you?”
“They don’t want me to spread the truth...” Jacque said with heavy emphasis. “But uh, thanks for helping me out.”
“No need to thank me. I feel bad enough that honest folk like yourself get picked on in MY Fortress. That’s not how I want to run my place, so it’s only natural that I stand up for you.”
It took a moment, but finally the guy gasped.
“Your fortress? Are you… the Duke?”
At least he knew what “Duke” is.
“Yeah,” Wriothesley grinned, turning up the charm. “And allow me to get you a couple of drinks to compensate for the rude welcome you’ve received so far.”
He got them to the Coupon Cafeteria, where best meals were already arranged, and generously poured alcohol into the poor guy, listening to the story of his life and misfortunes that brought him to the Fortress, nodding empathetically. He didn’t ask about Neuvillette at all, to not spook the target, trusting that he will come to this anyway, and finally his patience was rewarded.
“You know, you’re good!” the guy said drunkenly after some time, clasping his hand on Wriothesley's shoulder, which he beared stoically, grinning with all friendliness in the world.
“You know, they say we can’t talk to you because you’re bought by that lizard, but I think you’re a good guy. You just don’t know all the facts!”
“Which are?”
The guy leaned closer to him and lowered his voice to a dramatic whisper.
“Neuvillette is an evil dragon!”
Wriothesley choked on a laughter, which was way too obvious to turn into cough even for the dunce this stupid.
“No, you don't understand! Dragons were enemies of humanity that Celestia conquered. But they come back when killed! They reincarnate! He is a hydro dragon who was reborn in a human form so he could more easily trick us!”
Wriothesley blinked, remembering Neuvillette standing under the rain, and the old children’s song. “Hydro dragon, Hydro dragon, don’t cry….”
“He put our rightful archon Furina on that trial, right? No one else saw the verdict, so he pretended she was declared guilty. He forced her to abdicate and took the power for himself!”
Wriothesley realized long ago that Neuvilette, of course, was not human. It was clear to any idiot who talked to him for longer than a minute in an informal setting, not to mention a lifespan of at least five hundred years. But there were a lot of options other than “evil dragon”. There were old gods who did not receive archonhood, but instead decided to serve the archon, like Liyue’s adepti, and he always assumed Neuvillette was of the same kind. But the idea that Iudex was some kind of evil monster with a grudge against humanity was ridiculous. Especially when he showed up at the Fortress and saved the entire Fountaine and Wriothesley’s own hide from the flood.
“Really?”
“Yeah! We should restore our true archon Furina to her rightful throne!”
Furina’s insurrection? Interesting. Wouldn’t peg her for someone capable of this type of conspiracy.
“And did Furina herself give us her blessing?”
“She can’t speak publicly, as this monster threatens her.”
Hmm, inconclusive on Furina’s involvement.
He spent more time with the drunk Jacque, trying to get more details, but couldn’t get much more than unhinged ramblings on how evil the dragons are and how insidious it was for a dragon to pretend to be a human. He had to leave to prepare to Neuvillette's arrival the next day.
_____
Neuvillette stepped out of Opera Epiclese into the rain and slowed down his pace to prolong the sensation. It was a bit of what humans called guilty pleasure, as he felt guilty from inflicting rain on humans for his own pleasure. Though from his understanding, humans felt guilty because they saw this pleasure as something bad for themselves. Even if often this supposed harm made no sense to Neuvillette. Eating too much food until a human's stomach hurt was at least understandable to see as such, but he heard one of palais’ secretaries say that romance novels were her guilty pleasure. How could humans feel guilty for something as simple as reading? He stopped and asked her why she would feel guilty for reading, because melusines kept telling him that socializing with humans is very easy, you just need to ask them questions about themselves and let them talk about what they like. Well, it didn’t seem to work, as the secretary stumbled, started hyperventilating and emanated levels of panic and anxiety comparable to someone in the defendant’s chair. Sensing human emotions did not actually help Neuvillette in communicating with them, as he could not discern the reasons. He asked her if she perhaps came into possession of any cursed texts? He could generally sense the stench of corruption and there was nothing on her, but there was always a possibility that it was a curse he could not register. She panicked even more and vehemently denied. At this point he decided to give up on socializing, as it was obviously very distressing for humans, but felt obliged to tell her that if she ever did read anything she felt was cursed, to inform him. He hoped it would assuage her fear of reading. She thanked him, stuttering, and after that day avoided him at all costs.
The rain was a compromise solution in any case. Neuvillette always felt a bit strained and uncomfortable in his body, but after obtaining full dragonhood and most of the memories of past lives, the human shape felt downright stifling. He now remembered thousands of years of being something much bigger, long coils that could easily crush the spire of Opera Epiclese. Now, when he looked at his own reflection, it was hard to comprehend that this small and ridiculous frame was actually him. In addition, all of his memories and instincts called him to be submerged in water. But even with his poor understanding of humans, he realized that seeing the Iudex floating in the river would alarm humans much more than him standing under the rain. So rain was the closest solution he could get at his position.
He summoned rain instinctively, to be as close to engulfed in water as possible. It was a bit embarrassing that even humans noticed it and composed a rhyme, even if that rhyme was inaccurate. He didn’t cry, as vishaps didn’t cry at all and even his current human shaped body didn’t have tear ducts. The closest he could pinpoint to human experience, as he understood it, was being stressed and desire to be comforted, for which water was his best remedy.
And currently he was quite stressed, looking over the Fontaine laws in an attempt to revise them. The current system that treated justice as theater was clearly imperfect, which he realized long ago. But he never saw himself as authorized to change it, as humans were the responsibility of the archon and even without it, he was well aware he didn’t understand humans, so he knew it wasn’t his place to question the human justice system, to which he was only a temporary guest. But now, as fontanias became part of Teyvat after his decision, and so, a part of his responsibility as Teyvat’s god of life, even if the usurper tried to deny him, he couldn’t ignore the need for change any longer. The problem was that he did not understand humans any better, so it was very stressful to try and restructure their systems of governance.
He extended a hand, catching raindrops on his palm, when he noticed a silhouette near the elevator to the Fortress, and stopped himself from visibly controlling the weather.
Wriothesley caught his eyes and grinned, approaching him at brisk pace, umbrella over his head.
“Greetings, Monsieur.”
“Good morning, Your Grace.”
Wriothesley always somehow managed to make a “Monsieur” sound more impactful than Neuvillette could “Your Grace”, despite one being a noble title and another just a polite greeting.
“Would you like to…?” Wriothesley extended his arm with an umbrella, without actually covering Neuvillette with it. In the past, as a part of playing a role of “normal human”, Neuvillette accepted such offers, though there were not many aside from Wriothesley who dared to approach him with it. But now, as he was a full-fledged dragon, at the height of his power and influence in this land, surely he could afford to discard this role? Surely he could afford to be himself at least in this?
“No, thank you,” he said, smiling and trying to sound as cordial as possible, so that Wriothesley would not think it was a slight against him personally. “Don’t take it as offense, but I actually like being under the rain.”
The Duke smiled back, shaking his head.
“No offense taken, but why didn’t you say it last time? I felt like an idiot forcing you under an umbrella.”
“Really?” Neuvillette perked up, falling in step with the human. “You could tell that I…”
“Hated it? Yeah, for sure.”
“....prefered not to have an umbrella.”
Wriothesley let out a low, guttural bark of laughter that somehow got to the dragon despite him not being interested in humans in general.
“Not only I could tell I disturbed you, but I had to walk on the flowerbed to get to you, and then I trailed dirt in the Palais while everyone here glared at me for the audacity. Meanwhile you walked on the same dirt, but stayed pristine!”
“I’m sorry for…”
“Hey, don’t apologize. I’m just kidding, don’t worry.”
Neuvillette met the greyish blue eyes of thawed ice directly and sensed that he was truly not bothered, which didn’t make much sense. But Wriothesley was one of the very few humans who was not scared in the dragon’s presence. He was, probably, the only one who emanated only positive emotions at their meetings. Neuvillette mostly encountered negative reactions in his daily life at the trials, so he could not tell apart which positive feelings exactly that he read from Wriothesley due to the lack of exposure. But perhaps…
“I wouldn’t want you to feel unwelcome at the Palais,” Neuvillette said after a short pause.
Wriothesley grinned with a careless shrug.
“Then I will be there, even if the rest of your bureaucrats make faces. As I said, don’t worry.”
Neuvilette frowned, but didn’t see much point in pressing this further. After a confrontation with Navia, the dragon realized that his lack of understanding of humans hindered him, instead of making him truly impartial. Especially now that he was de facto in charge of the entire Fontaine government. And practice showed that only direct interaction with humans could give valuable experience, as watching from the Iudex seat did not allow him a nuanced understanding.
So perhaps, if Wriothesley was a rare human who was not scared of him, and he proved rational and trustworthy in the years they knew each other, Neuvillette could confide in his true nature and maybe ask for advice in understanding humanity?
“Perhaps staying for some tea would make up for this past offense?”
Wriothesley stumbled for a moment.
“Seriously?” He sounded as casual and ironic as usual, but the surprised burst of positive emotions from him was bright and obvious. “After all these years you finally decided to deign my humble office with your presence?”
“It’d be a completely unofficial visit, of course.”
“Sure, sure. It was never my secret plot to bribe you with a tea party, trust me, even I realize my tea is not that good.”
His voice was ironic, but for a moment Neuvillette could see his crooked grin turn into a genuine smile. So, reassured that he was not imposing, Iudex nodded and followed the human into the Fortress’ entrance.
_________
The inspection itself was mostly a formality. The Court of Fontaine technically had no direct authority over Meripode, but it provided guards and substantial resources, and so it had a right to oversee the use of these assets. The actual budgeting was done on the regular in behind the scenes reports though, as the data was not visible in the in person visit. Still, it was a time honored tradition that got Neuvilette to show up regularly.
“Take a seat. It will take me a minute to make tea.”
Neuvilette gracefully sat down on the visitor’s chair In Wriothesley office, folding his hands on the cane. He still sat with a ramrod straight back and perfect posture, but there was a certain lightness to him today, which was hard to put into words.
“The inspection is over, yet you are still nervous.”
Wriothesley knew he had a poker face good enough to cover it, yet Neuvillette saw it anyway. He had theorized for a long time that the Iudex could sense emotions, but usually he would not acknowledge it directly like this.
“I wasn't nervous about the inspection to begin with. But inviting a high and mighty Iudex himself to the tea for years and then disappointing him when he finally accepts would be a devastating faux de pas. They will mock me on the first pages of all the papers tomorrow.”
Neuvillette frowned slightly.
“I must underline that I’m not here in any official capacity, and I would hope I’m talking to Wriothesley, not the Warden or the Duke. If you agree, I would ask that we leave the titles at the door.”
“No, of course,” Wriothesley, who had fantasized about leaving titles at the door and then clothes on the floor for actual years, said quickly, frantically recalculating how he could turn the tea party to wine tasting, which best wines he had confiscated in his storage and how he could make turning on the gramophone and then maybe leaning against the edge of the table in front of Neuvillette look natural and smooth. “Absolutely. I was just joking anyway, don’t mind it.”
“Ah, I see. I apologize, I’m unfortunately prone to missing humorous intent, so I appreciate your clarification.”
With how far the Iudex went out of his way to assure people of his good intentions in informal situations, Wriothesley really didn’t understand how everyone found him so intimidating. Especially because he very often had to interact with assholes in positions of power who did try to intimidate him on purpose and the contrast was very apparent. Neuvillette projected an aura of power without really wanting to, and then tried to over-explain himself to make others feel at ease. His earnest awkwardness was something like the clumsiness of a huge beast like an elephant trying not to step on the gaggle of kittens at his feet.
“In any case, there is nothing to be nervous about. After all, tea is liquid, and it’s really hard to make liquids unpleasant. So far I think only Fonta truly managed it.” Neuvillette drummed his fingers on the table and glanced at Wriothesley. “To be frank, if crimes against water could be prosecuted, Fonta would receive life in prison.”
Wriothesley snorted. “So no sugar in your tea, I take it?”
“No, thank you,” Iudex said politely and then, after a short pause, “And to clarify, I was not serious. There is nothing wrong with people liking sugary drinks, of course. I was just making an attempt at a joke.”
He really was horrendously bad at pretending to be a human. How could anyone hear him talk and still believe he’s a scheming manipulator was beyond ridiculous.
“No, I got it. It was a good joke,” The Duke grinned, placing a teacup in front of Neuvillette and sitting down across the table with his own.
Neuvillette gave him a graceful nod with a little smile and picked up his cup, giving it a swirl before tasting.
“Hmm. Interesting. Poignant. Bitter,” he said thoughtfully, tilting his head.
Wriothesley was about to mention that this sort was not usually bitter, but Iudex continued.
“Not by nature, but forced by circumstances. Not nearly enough water to be nourished, so it had to adapt and conserve strength, letting leaves seen as unimportant to die and concentrate on survival of the main branches. But there is not just hunger… there is a dream of rain. An ache of something not ever known, but yearned, longed for, without realizing what it is. But then…” Neuvillette closed his eyes for a moment. “It happened. There is a memory of luminous joy of water not gathered by mere drops, but drank in full, overwhelming, a feast after a life of fighting for scraps of morning dew. It had tasted rain at least once in the end.”
Wriothesley put his own cup down, leaning forward in disbelief.
“No way. This was a harvest from a drought year and it’s normally a mild sort, considered unusually strong in this season. How could you know this? Are you cheating?”
“You’re welcome to test me with other samples,” Neuvillette said with an air of a magnanimous ruler granting a boon and put the teacup down with a delicate clink.
“Oh, I’m taking you up on your word, trust me,” the Duke grinned, but then paused. He didn’t want to spoil the mood, but he remembered how strongly Neuvillette felt about the perceived melusines conspiracy. Wriothesley had to tell him about the evil dragon idiots just to make sure he’s not thrown off balance later. That’s what the guard dogs are for, after all.
“Actually, before we move forward with testing your psychic tea reading abilities, there is something concerning official business that I think you should know. And then we can forget it completely.”
Neuvillette inclined his head with a small smile.
“There is a small group of conspirators, - and I must reiterate, it’s very small - who operate on the ridiculous idea that… uh, that you’re some kind of an evil dragon who schemed to overthrow Furina.”
Neuvillette's smile froze.
“You don’t have to worry about it, really. It’s negligibly small, and well, anyone with a working brain would not believe that you’re a monster in disguise.”
Iudex was silent for some time, not meeting Wriothesley’s eyes.
“Are melusines implicated in this?” he said finally.
“No. No, there’s no connection to them in this stupid theory.”
“Good. That's good. They do love living with humans so much.”
Wriothesley suspected that Iudex was taking things kind of out of proportion again.
“Listen, it’s really nothing…”
“No, no, I understand. It would be so unacceptably horrifying for humans to learn their ruler is a… monster.”
Neuvillette's voice wavered, but his face was impartial, strict, previous lightness gone completely. Wriothesley saw his hands tighten their grip on the handle of his cane a moment before he abruptly stood up.
“I must apologize for impropriety, but I have important business in the Palais which was inappropriate for me to neglect for so long. I must beg your leave to depart.”
Wriothesley stood up too, scraping to understand what he did wrong.
“Wait, it’s not…”
“Thank you for your time, Your Grace.”
Wriothesley shut his mouth, the title feeling like a slap for the first time in his life. The formality and politeness somehow only made it worse. He took a deep breath and willed himself to sound calm.
“I hope you have a nice evening, Monsieur Iudex.”
Neuvillette left in what for his usual dignified pace could be considered a hurry. Wriothesley followed him without being seen, partly to make sure he doesn’t get bothered by inmates and partly on an instinct to investigate.
At the Fortress’ entrance, he watched Neuvillette walk under the rain, lifting his head upward. The blue strands of his long hair glowed and so did his coat-tails. They extended, shining brilliant bioluminescent blue, trailing behind the Chief Justice, in a moment looking like fish’s fins, then the next - as colossal snake’s coils. Sea waves crashed against the ridge without any wind, rising high, reaching to a lonely glowing figure of Iudex. With bated breath, Wriothesley watched Neuvillette extend a hand, as if catching raindrops - and rain stopped mid-flight in the air, lingering over his palm, waves frozen cresting over the earth. The raindrops gathered in a shuddering spheres, and then stretched upwards, against all laws of gravity. Wriothesley’s heart skipped a beat as Neuvillette closed his fist and the rain flew backwards to the skies.
Wriothesley stormed back into his office and frantically searched through the reports, pages flying about, until he found the one about vishaps. He looked at the photos, seeing similarities he would never look for before. The dark blue color of vishap’s hide was nearly identical to Neuvillette’s attire, but that was small beans, easily written off as coincidence. Their eyes, bright magenta with white vertical slice of a pupil, resembled Iudex, but there was room for debate, as his eyes were much paler, lilac merging into gentle blue instead of a bright pink, even as white vertical pupil was so similar. What really struck Wriothesley after all this, was actually the little blue feather at the side of the head of both vishaps and Neuvillette. It was identical and looked so… deliberate. It had to be chosen and placed precisely like this.
Still, this was not enough. He needed more evidence. He needed… he needed answers.
He walked to Jacque's block as quickly as he could without alarming inmates, but when he got to the conspirator’s room, Jacque was sleeping on the bed and a man was sitting on the chair next to him, reading a book. He looked up when Wriothesley walked in and stood up, clumsily dropping the book. He was tall and gangly, had dark hair, Inazuman features and light brown eyes behind the glasses.
“Who are you?” Wriothesley was really not in the mood for playing games.
“Well, my organization caught wind that you are interested in learning some… historical information, and our poor Jacque is really not the best source, which is why I’m here to answer any questions you have,” the man gave him a groveling smile. “You can call me Enjou.”
“Not here. In my office. Follow me.”
When they got there, Enjou whistled musingly.
“Uh, what a nice office! Must be a pretty sweet gig. I wish I had an office instead of slinking in dump ruins all the time.” He sighed theatrically. “So, I assume your main questions are on the vishap situation. I…”
“Wait,” Wriothesley said, walking up to one of his wall cabinets. “You can’t expect me to just believe you on your word.”
“Oh, of course, of course! You’re free to rough me up a bit first. Maybe a little bit of torture? But only a little bit, I’ve got a glass jaw, haha!”
Wriothesley didn’t live so long as an undisputed champion of fight club to not recognize a freak who gets off on pain. He grimaced, walking up to the table where Enjou was already trying to rifle through the papers. He stopped with an apologetic grin and put his hands up. Wriothesley put a glass vial on the table.
“Drink.”
Enjou raised his eyebrows.
“Are we dining and wining first or?...”
“It’s a truth serum,” it was a secret project of the Sumeru Akademiya, before the sages were overthrown. Dendro Archon reportedly could read the thoughts of people, and sages were trying to replicate the effect at least partially. Wriothesley came into possession of it after using his network to get the sages connected to the needed people in Fontaine institute, as Fontaine was at the cutting edge of mech technology and the sages were apparently building an artificial god. Didn’t pan out for them, but the serum worked. Wriothesley was sure of it, because he tried it on himself first.
“Oh! How exciting! How does it work? Will it perhaps burn my insides in agonizing pain if I lie?”
“Drink,” Wriothesley said through gritted teeth.
Enjou smiled and drank the vial in one shot.
“Well, nothing is burning so far, but the evening is young, haha,” he said, smacking his lips.
Wriothesley took a deep breath.
“Why are you here?”
“Huh? What do you mean? To explain the history to you, as I said.”
“Because of the goodness of your heart? What’s your agenda? Your goal?”
Enhou cleared his throat.
“Well, first of all, I do believe in uncovering and spreading so-called “forbidden” knowledge. But with your particular case can you really question my agenda? I didn’t come to you first. You were the one who sought us out. I didn’t even want to be here! I was doing my own thing without knowing about you, to be honest! But, well, I am in an organization with some unfortunate morons who thought that recruiting a convenient idiot and then sending him into underworld prison to make sure he isn’t heard is a great plan. And then when the Warden takes note of the idiot and gets him to blabber, these same morons go, Enjou, you have to get there, because you’re a vishap expert! Ugh.”
Enjou shook his head in seemingly sincere frustration.
“But um, yeah, I’m not trying to recruit you or anything. We know how you’ve disposed of House of Hearth agents and how you generally obstruct Fatui’s activity, and we just don't want you to do the same to us. Because we’re not your enemy! So I’m here to provide you with the necessary context to see that.”
Wriothesley drummed his fingers on the table.
“Okay. Start talking about Neuvilette and vishaps.”
“Well, Neuvilette is a Hydro Dragon, that should be obvious. To clarify, Hydro Dragon here means Hydro Dragon Sovereign, because technically all hydro vishaps are hydro dragons. If you didn’t know, which is understandable, as you’re more of a fighter type and not a bookworm like myself, haha, vishaps are primordial elemental creatures, original rulers of this land and mortal foes of humanity. Long before Archons, there were Dragon Sovereigns in charge of each element. Then there was a war with Celestia, specifics of which are not widely known, but we do know that Celestia won, dragons were largely eradicated and the huge chunks of powers of Sovereigns were taken from them and given to the Archons. Hydro Sovereign was killed.”
Enjou made a dramatic pause, before leaning forward with a grin. “But you see, vishaps reincarnate. Neuvillette is a Hydro Sovereign reborn in a human shape. There was actually an Inazuman prophecy about it, recorded in the Byakuyakoku Collection. That Hydro Dragon will descend in a human form, and it specifically mentions a cane. This really baffles me, to be honest. How could they predict the cane? Why does he even need a cane? Surely not because of any weakness, he’s an immortal dragon, 500 years is very young for him. And the records say when Neuvilette took his position as the Iudex some 400 years ago, he already had a cane. Was he born with it? Like, had he sprung fully formed, with a cane? Did he pick it up as, I don't know, honorary agreement with a prophecy? Or were his fashion choices actually predetermined to the degree that the prophecy knew them millenia ago?”
“Get back on track,” Wriothesley growled.
“Oh, sorry. Hmm, this serum works by forcing you to spell your thoughts out loud, yes? Well, then it’s not my fault I’m even more blabbering than usual!”
Wriothesley clasped his hands together and said slowly, carefully watching Inazuman’s reaction. “Even if he is a hydro sovereign dragon, as you say, this alone does not make him evil, as your conspiracy claims.”
Enjou fixed his glasses. He really had the hands of a bookworm, no work calluses or fighting scars. But there were spots of reddened, peeling skin that looked like burns that didn’t get to fully heal before getting burned again.
“Did you miss the “mortal foe of humanity” bit? But okay, sure. This is Fontaine after all, presumption of innocence and all that. I mean, I can’t read his thoughts to tell you under oath that he’s evil, so don’t take me to court, hehe!” Enjou grinned, clearly pleased at his own joke. “But I can tell what I know and ask some questions. My first question is why, after losing a war and presumably being killed by Celestia, would an ancient dragon god want to serve a servant of Celestia? The Archon, who rules with what is actually his own power? Unless he had some sort of agenda, perhaps? And come to think of it, why would Hydro Archon put a mortal foe of humanity into a position of such institutional power?”
“Are you implying Neuvilette forced Furina to give him the position of Iudex?”
“Well, I wasn’t here!” Enjou raised his hands defensively. “But why else would he become the Iudex?”
“There are higher beings and gods serving archons in other nations. Like Liyue adepti serving Rex Lapis.”
“Morax was known as the prime of the adepti. None of them could compare with him at strength. Same with yokai and Baal in Inazuma, she was the strongest by far. It’s natural that they would accept servitude. But here…” Enjou glanced at Wriothesley with a sly smile. “If you had to make a bet on a direct fight between Neuvillette and Furina, who would you bet on? Come on, I know tales that her own court would not listen to her until the Iudex tapped his cane.”
Wriothesley couldn’t really argue with this. When the Primordial Sea started breaking out, he himself sent for Neuvillette and didn’t even think to ask the actual Archon.
“In that case, why didn’t he just kill her immediately? Why would he play the judge?”
“Well, you see, he would not get his power back from just killing her. It would just pass to the next Archon. No, the Hydro Archon had to destroy her own throne. And running out the ruler requires a long game, as you know very well yourself, You Grace.”
Wriothesley kept a calm face, but something must have given him away, as Enjou grinned predatorily.
“Next set of facts and questions. You know of the infamous Archon trial, of course? When it was revealed that fontanian people are actually oceanids, given human shape by the previous hydro archon, Egeria? And the prophecy of the flood works because Primordial Sea waters dissolve fontanians into their oceanid forms. Well, the flood actually came. Why were fontanians not dissolved?”
“I’m sure you’ll tell me that.”
“Hehe, yes. It was because Neuvillette turned them into real humans with his powers of Hydro Sovereign. How generous of him, yeah? The question is, why did it take him so long? It’s been 500 years, and yet fontanians were made human only minutes before the flood.”
Despite a feeble bookworm posturing, there was a shadow of unhinged madness in his eyes, dangerous enough that in any other case Wriothesley would cut contact. But the stakes were too high right now. He needed to get all the information he could out of this lunatic.
“You might also remember that on the same trial it was proven that Furina is not a Hydro Archon. And I can tell you that the actual Archon, Focalors, was in the Oracle machine the whole time. Sorry, I’m not even trying to pronounce that full name, haha!”
The urge to punch this bastard was overwhelming, but Wriothesley kept himself in check, mostly because he could tell he was being baited into it and he didn’t want to give the piece of shit the satisfaction.
“Anyway, Neuvilette had an audience with her right after a trial, and as result she killed herself and gave him power back. You see, Hydro Archon doesn’t have the ability to turn oceanids into real humans. All of you were just… things, playing at being humans,” Enjou said with a smirk that looked more fascinated than mocking. “But Hydro Sovereign, the original god of life, does have the power to do so. And he also, conveniently, has control over the Primordial Sea, which you, Your Grace, already know as he stopped the flood in your own Fortress.”
Wriothesley raised an eyebrow and Enjou smiled with a shrug.
“Again, I was not there! But I do know Hydro Sovereign controls the Primordial Sea, and that there is an entrance to the Sea in the Meripode Fortress. I also know that there was some emergency in the Fortress, where inmates were told to run as close to the surface as possible, and then Monsieur Iudex visited and the disaster was somehow avoided.”
Wriothesley frowned.
“If he was really a mortal enemy of humanity, why wouldn’t he just let the gates of Meripode break and the flood happen right there and then? We would all be gone and he wouldn’t need to lift a finger. Instead he ran to help when I… when the Fortress called.”
“And what would that achieve? He still wouldn’t get his power back,” Enjou shrugged dismissively and then smiled, almost wistfully.
“No, you know what I would do if *I* was the Hydro Sovereign with an ability to take human form? And if the Archon who held my power hostage was relatively weak AND had the prophecy involving a flood of the Sea I control? Well, I’d infiltrate human society, take a position of high authority and make sure the humans not only see me as the personification of law and justice, but also respect me more than their own Archon. And when the prophecy deadline is coming up, I’d make sure I have people loyal to me in some key positions. Such as Royal Duelist… and the Warden of the Fortress.”
“He didn’t make me the Warden,” Wriothesley gritted out.
“No, but he did make you the Duke, didn’t he?” Enjou smirked with a wink. “Our sources say the Court was not thrilled to give the highest noble title to you. And if the Iudex did not throw his own weight behind it, it would have never come to pass. How generous of him.”
It was true, Wriothesley’s own informants reported that the Court loathed to give him a title, let alone as high as the Duke. Neuvillette was the only one who fought for him and fought hard, because usually Iudex’s one word was enough to make a decision, but here the stalemate lasted for two months. They wanted to compromise and give him the viscount, but Iudex wouldn’t budge, so in the end, they caved.
Wriothesley never asked Neuvillette for the title. Neuvillette never mentioned what he did for the Warden and never dropped anything even as close as a hint of asking anything in return.
Unless you see it as a part of centuries long game, where mundane favors didn’t matter, but being called first to the access of the Primordial Sea did.
“Ah, you’re starting to get it, don’t you?” Enjou sensed blood in the water, like a proper shark would. “Then I would orchestrate a public court hearing to absolutely discredit the current ruler and corner the actual Archon. And when Focalors is forced to talk to me…. I would make a bargain. Saving the lives of all fontanians in exchange of getting my full power back and Focalors dying. Isn't it ironic that the dragon playing human was the one to turn human-shaped water things into actual humans?"
Enjou leaned back against his chair, grinning with satisfaction.
“And then I’d have an entire country loyal to me as a ruler, which would make a great foothold to use for attacking Celestia.”
Wriothesley took a deep breath.
“You really expect me to take you on your word? You might believe it yourself, which will pass the truth serum, but the word of a lunatic is not evidence.”
“Oh, of course not! I would never expect you to take my lowly word for it. Instead, why don’t you take Monsieur Iudex’s word?”
Enjou made a dramatic gesture of spilling a heap of conches onto the table. Wriothesley raised his eyebrows, when the other man poked one of them awkwardly.
“Now that I have reclaimed one of the Seven Authorities from the hands of the usurpers, I have regained my true form,” a calm voice that was undoubtedly Neuvillette, said out of nowhere. “I am now a fully fledged dragon, powerful enough to judge the rest of the gods. My final destiny is to judge the Usurper-King in the heavens above.”
“This could be faked,” Wriothesley said automatically, just to argue, but his heart already fell.
“You wound me! These are his words, and I spent an entire night fishing them out for you, I’ll have you know. It’s quite hard to capture this. You’re welcome to listen to all of them and see for yourself.”
Almost against his will, Wriothesley reached out and touched one of the conches.
“…I shall fulfill my vow to judge all of The Seven in turn, even if the sky should fall and the ground give way.”
Wriothesley took an abrupt breath through his teeth. Enjou sighed and stood up.
“I think it’s better for you to listen to this alone. After, you’re welcome to reach out to us, but please don’t make any hasty decisions. I’ll see you soon, Your Grace!”
Enjou walked down the stairs, and by the time Wriothesley got to them, there was no one there. The Duke couldn’t bring himself to focus on that though. Instead, he walked up to one of the wall cabinets and took out a bottle of whiskey he was saving up as a possible gift.
He didn’t bother with the glass. He fell down into the chair in front of the conches and clenched his fingers on the bottle, icy veins springing up from under them. He took a sip and touched another conch.
“…my grievances with the usurpers have yet to be settled... They owe a debt of blood that shall not be forgotten.”
He drank, staring blindly into the distance, and listened, and the quiet words burned worse than whiskey sliding down his throat. He caught himself on a familiar thought. “This can’t be happening. This is too monstrous.” The same feverish thoughts he had when he discovered the truth about his foster parents.
As if by now he shouldn’t have learned that nothing is too monstrous in this world.
“As a survivor of the dragon race who has regained my full dragonhood, I must fulfill my oath and obligations even if it means returning all the water in the oceans back to the heavens.”
It really did sound exactly like Neuvillette. Wriothesley tried to find the lie, something that sounded fake, but not only the voice, but the cadence and word choice fit. And it sounded calm, impartial as usual too. And then there were hydro vishaps appearing in Erinnyes…
Fuck, was it really that easy to fool him? Was he really this big of a fool? He learned to distrust sweet words and warm smiles, and he was so sure that he wouldn’t get caught in the same lies ever again, even if he sacrificed his ability to love for this. But all it took was a seeming opposite, direct and harsh, too cold and intimidating to appear manipulative, but endearingly awkward just sometimes, just enough to make him believe that… That there was something true and clear in this rotten world. That he could trust in *someone*.
“Nothing will stop me from rendering judgment on each of The Seven.”
He went through all of the recordings, frantically at first, wanting to find contradictions, then, when none were found, numbly re-listening to the few that hit the worst.
“…also the destroyer of the present order, the one who shall judge all gods, and the foe of humanity. “
Wasn’t it too obvious in hindsight? Why would the Iudex stake his own reputation on Wriothesley’s title? How could you not see it coming? Oh, because you thought you “deserve” it for turning this dog-fighting pit of a prison into something with a modicum of fairness? Because you thought he recognized your redemption? Gods, what are you, fucking fourteen again, did you learn nothing, why would anyone ever care about you, you naive goddamn idiot?
Soon, the bottle was somehow almost done. At this point he was running one recording on repeat, mindless and purposeless except for repeating slashes of pain, familiar rhythm like the knife on his wrists years ago.
"Hydro Dragon, Hydro Dragon, don't cry." Whoever had penned that rhyme, as well as the Fontainians who came to believe in it, must not have known the Hydro Dragon all that well, considering that they thought the Hydro Dragon could cry. What did they take said Dragon for, some sort of bleeding heart who grieved for humans and the heavens alike?”
If this was true… If this was true, then Wriothesley didn’t just get fooled himself. Then he helped a monster take control of the country and potentially use it in war against heavens.
He clenched his hand and it took him a moment to realize he broke the bottle he was holding in it. That pain from glass pieces in his palm felt small and distant now. But at last, it spurned him into action.
If this was true, he only had one shot. He’d already told Neuvillette of the dragon conspiracy, like a good little idiot eager to please. And any tyrant worth his salt would make sure to take him out after his, especially now that he outlived his purpose in giving access to Meripode vaults. He might have some time because of how oblivious he was, dismissing the conspiracy openly, but it couldn’t be long.
He couldn’t take his time. He couldn’t hope for the better. He had to act like it’s the worst option possible. More than anything, he needed to confront Neuvillette, dragon Sovereign or not. He had to fix this, no matter the cost.
He realized he needed leverage. Brute strength was out of the question. Even before the flood, Neuvillette absolutely destroyed Fatui Harbinger in one flash, quicker than anyone in the audience could see what happened. Wriothesley would put himself against Harbringer with no hesitation, but he wasn’t an idiot. If this was how powerful Iudex was before, then after allegedly gaining his full power, there was no way Wriothesley could threaten him. No, he needed something else.
He took out the paper and wrote a note, taking care to not stain it with blood. Fortunately, he held the bottle in his left hand, so he could keep it out of the way.
“....and so confess that I, Wriothesley, Warden of the Fortress of Meripode, killed Chief Justice, Iudex Neuvillette.”
He finished the note and carefully put in his signature, then folded the paper into an envelope and closed it with his personal seal. Then he walked up to a safe, one of the hidden ones, and punched in a code. When the safe opened, he rummaged in it for a moment, until finally taking out two vials.
This was sold to him as the poison that could kill a god.
#rhine writes#rhine writes light#neuvillette#wriothesley#wriolette#genshin impact#enjou#i had a lot of fun with enjou here#anyway let me know what you guys think
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[Spoilers] One Piece Chapter 1113: A shot in the dark than I just need to get out
The One Piece is the original Mother Flame. The One Piece is the Final Piece of the Puzzle Needed to actually sink the World. Perhaps Joyboy hid it away from the 20 Kingdoms, Maybe These are the Crimes both Joyboy and Zunesha refers to. Sinking several civilizations. The Arc and Zuneshas sin is related. And theres a bunch of evidence to suggest that alot of people Knew about the world inveitably sinking. Im sure youve seen the things im talking about all over the internet too but Ill repeat them Anyways
All of the former Roger Pirates have some sort of Safeguard against the Water.
Krokus lives inside of a Whale, Right next to the Tallest point of the Red Line, Reverse Mountain.
Reighley lives not only on Sabaody which is close to both Mary Geoise and Fishman Island, He is also an expert in Coating ships. (And I guess if all else fails hes a pretty darn good Swimmer lol)
Shanks has built up a large strong crew of absolutely no Devil Fruit users.
Buggy was already a Devil Fruit user before they knew any of this stuff. And I feel like he is in a League of his own, I dont know his actual motives anymore.
Oden wanted to open up Wano and I guess we wont really find out why he felt that was nececary for now.
Current generation of Celestial Dragons might possibly not know about the innevitable sinking of the world, But their Uniforms are Desinged in a way that they could still live underwater if Needed. The 20 kingdoms must have been very aware of the worlds inevitable fate.
I think when Reighley says something along the lines of "Maybe you will reach a different conclusion" to Robin when talking about the Void Century. I think the actual situation of the Ancient Kingdom and the 20 Kingdoms must be alot more Grey than just "20 Kingdoms bad" Maybe the ancient Kingdom is the Originator of the Mother Flame.
Im not sure, Im just rambling out some thoughts here really, Regardless I think that such a Major piece of the Puzzle has been placed and we can start to make some more serious predictions.
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One piece chapter 1098 spoilers
Ugh. I think I would have rather had a break this week than next week. A Break on this chapter? No bueno.
Plus oda clearly needed it.
This isn’t going to be reactions, more theory I came up with reacting to the chapter.
Anyway. Jewlery bonny has a fatal disease. Or rather she had a fatal disease. She clearly doesn’t anymore.
Here’s my bet. Kuma pushes becori away.
Dragon said he would get kuma in contact with every doctor. Dragon knows vegapunk. Kuma goes to see vegapunk and vegapunk tells him “he can’t cure it, but you can”
Tells him he can push the disease out and into something else. Kuma refuses because that would mean killing someone. Vegapunk also mentions that kuma would be an excellent person to make into a cyborg. Kuma also refuses. (This is that one time bonny visited egghead she mentioned)
Then king becori shows up again, fucks shit up. Tells kuma he’ll always come back, no matter where you send me.
Kuma pushes Bonny’s disease into king becori, killing him. Kuma’s one atrocity that gets spun into him committing every atrocity ever.
Kuma becomes king of sorbet. Maybe he already was king after pushing becori away, idk. Sorbet kingdom is beset by problems all around. The world government offers “help”, but kuma refuses, because like, it’s the world government. His people don’t understand though and he becomes known as a tyrant.
The government invades, deposes kuma, reinstates the old family (I guess becori’s mother? Queen dowager Connie from the reviere who bonny disguised herself as. I honestly don’t know what up with that, why bonny was a spitting image of her, maybe the guards just dumb.)
Kuma is sent to vegapunk who is forced to make him a cyborg. Bonny is sent to the marines to be taken care of (akainu mentioned she escaped).
Kuma becomes a warlord because vegapunk assures them that “with this chip he’s perfectly loyal to the WG”
Then Saboady happens and the government realizes that was a fucking lie, and vegapunk is forced to finish the job for good. Kuma pushes out his memories and they are sealed in a science room made of science that the bubble can’t escape.
In the present kuma pushes out all the pain and damage he accrued during his romp in marijois, and gives it all to Saturn. It either does or doesn’t work, my money says it doesn’t. (We’ve been told a major incident happened but them just escaping with vegapunk out from under everyone’s nose would suffice, a whole elder doesn’t have to die.)
either way the straw hats flee. Giant ancient robot that woke up takes the place of vegapunk’s robot, and their plan to escape goes off with only a few minor bumps.
Oh and also the fleet shows up at egghead. Luffy’s vivre card burnt up when he died in wano, didn’t come back, but luffy still chilling? An emperor now? Since they can’t follow the vivre card anymore they had to wait until they intercepted a marine broadcast saying luffy was on egghead.
They hold the fleet back while the straw hats and vegapunk and bonny flee to elbaf. Where shanks and his fleet is. Luffy is gonna approach shanks with his entire fleet behind him.
We were promised a battle royale weren’t we?
This is longer than I expected. I’m very likely wrong about a couple of things, but this is basically how I think the rest of egghead goes.
(My biggest gripe is time. Becori kinda has to die at the start of next chapter for the timeline to make sense imo
Tl:dr: basically a lot of events I think will happen.
Kuma pushes Bonny’s disease.
Kuma isn’t a tyrant that’s just rumours and propaganda.
Kuma plans to push all his damage into Saturn.
The giant robot that woke up a few chapters ago will help the straw hats escape.
The straw hat fleet shows up at egghead.
They follow luffy to elbaf where shanks and his fleet are.
Battle royale to come.
#one piece#one piece 1098#one piece 1098 spoilers#one piece theory#one piece spoilers#one piece speculation
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Some more One Piece things that are true and real and my uncle works for Nintendo
The Paw-paw fruit is gonna grow on one of Nami’s tangerines.
Viví for straw hat round two is going to happen b/c Morgans is gonna go to Elbaf to get an interview with Luffy.
Bonney is NOT joining the crew.
One or both of Dorry and Broggy are going to die on Egghead to allow the straw hats to escape. That’s gonna catalyze Usopp to start contributing again.
Loki is a scaredy-cat and compulsive liar just like Usopp
Luffy will eventually become so free in Gear 5 that he stops looking like a person. He kinda goes amorphous-blob-mode, taking on whatever shape and physique he thinks would be the most fun in the moment.
Luffy fights and beats Blackbeard, finds the One Piece, and then fights and beats Imu in that order.
Usopp gets conquerors haki I’m not kidding
He also gets Mjolnir, is named commander of the grand fleet (cuz luffy doesn’t want to deal with ordering people around), and the island Syrup Village is on gets renamed to Sniper Island.
Vegapunk’s message is about the name of the ancient kingdom. It’s not named “One Piece” or anything related to the one piece, but it is a name that is instantly recognizable and important for many people both in-world and in the audience. Not sure what exactly it’ll be, but it’ll be a big lore bomb.
Sabo is going to end up on Elbaf with luffy and vivi too — he needs to tell vivi what cobra said after all. This is going to lead to an alliance between the revs and the straw hats. Dragon might even say something to his son! Probably not, but maybe!
Moria joins cross guild. He’s jacked now
Buggy and Shanks can read poneglyphs (thanks to traveling with Oden). Buggy does not realize this until he stumbles into someone’s poneglyph rubbings and reads them like it’s nbd. Shanks been knew.
Shanks is not evil, but he’s also not exactly on luffy’s side… maybe. Shanks is the wildcard to end all wildcards imo.
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Some One Piece fans keep comparing the final stages of the manga to Naruto’s... but I’m sitting here going.... It’s Star Wars. It’s going to be Return of the Jedi.
It is going to be a multi-front battle, the “rebels” are going to be split into two or more armies (land, sea, sky, space), and there is going to be a more-personal showdown in a “thrown room” between the heroes and the emperor.
The Cross Guild is gathering together splinter groups of Pirates under one flag. There is SWORD inside the Marines that are going to clean up from the inside. An actual Revolutionary Army, who’s leader is the main protagonist’s father... these forces could come together as a Rebel Alliance.
“That’s no moon, it’s a space station.” There is a lot to do about the Moons of the OP world happening right now... and people forget that there is more than one moon and people use to live on those moons. One of them even “created” the Red Line. They may have “created” the Ancient Weapons. One of the ancient Weapons is satellite-like and may be even used as a base.
There is foreshadowing that the Red Line is going to be destroyed to create the All Blue... likely using these weapons all at once along with God-tier Devil Fruit users and awakened Logia Devil Fruit Users.... Hell, maybe that is the function of the One Piece, to combine the abilities of the ancient weapons into one that could bring down the Red Line.
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A Blackbeard vs Shanks battle looks to be in the works, and prob happen before the final war, which could potentially take Shanks out of the picture or leave him realizing he’s going to need to make allies. Also all of this stuff with Xebec, Teach keeps messing with (if he actually revives Xebec, it would poetic that Rocks kills him).... Rocks fills the role of “Darth Vader” more than Teach anyways. (As Rocks does have a more personal connection with people like Garp (who ‘killed’ Rocks the fist time, and puts Garp in the Obi Wan role), and could be Dragon’s actual father, making him Luffy’s other grandfather... but as always, Luffy wouldn’t care)... and like Vader, Rocks could turn on Imu... We just don’t know Rocks’ personality)
Teach is more like the Jabba the Hutt of the story, he’s a major threat, has personal connections with some of the protagonists, but he’s the secondary villain to the greater threat that is the empire. He can’t be “turned” like other characters, like those joining/heading the Cross Guild, so he’s going to have to be taken out or he’ll end up a spanner in the works. Teach also currently has Coby held “hostage”... just not in carbonite. (edit: now he has pudding too)
another direction is that Imu plays Blackbeard like a violin. Imu has some puppet master illusionist cryptid brain-melting power, and just flips Teach and his captains. Teach, like Rocks, gets 99% there to completing his goal, only to get slapped down at the end... Teach might not even know about Imu. He shows up where the “empty” throne is and is all: “Zehahah! I am going to spread chaos across the whole world!’ (Imu, whom just came out of the bathroom): “No, you’re not.” “um... who are you?” “your master.” (brain zappy) “yes master.”
Maybe both? Teach gets beaten down by Luffy and/or Shanks, and Imu turns him into a puppet before he actually dies and his devil fruits could reincarnate. (this could work, if Teach is just a Rocks fanboy and Rocks never makes an actual physical appearance... being on an island that was shot by giant death lasers kind of means there isn’t a body around. Without Vegapunk on the side of the world government anymore, it is unlikely that Teach would be turned into a PX like Kuma was).
The main plot of OP is following similar lines to the Skypia arc... which involves a land that was split in two and needs to be reunited (all blue/red line), a godhead with overwhelming power(Enel = Imu), a lost golden city that explorers spent years trying to find (The One Piece), the person that found it was executed by his government (Noland = Roger). The Winged Races all came from the moons to settle on the planet (the Lunarians settled on the Redline, to be later displaced and destroyed by the Celestial Dragons). Enel destroyed his own home island (Imu is maybe from God Valley?) Enel pretty much had his way until someone with high resistance to his powers showed up (Joyboy/Nika to Imu). Enel went onto a massive ship and left the planet (there are aliens in this world... so other earths exist. Imu may just fuck off to one of them instead of staying there after their defeat) Ended with a massive party.
The Main Plot isn’t going to stray too far. It would be like comparing Alabasta to Dressrosa or Thriller Bark to Wano.. there are structure similarities, but there are enough differences for each of them to stand on their own. I am fond of saying that Oda likes to reuse his plots but make them bigger. And i honestly think that Blackbeard is going to be dealt with right before the final war to topple the government happens. He may even be the person to kick it off. He isn’t the penultimate villain (and neither is Shanks ffs). Blackbeard is trying to follow in the path of Xebec, and Xebec wanted world domination (it is still possible that he just wanted to burn everything down to the ground and didn’t care how it was accomplished). Blackbeard is likely missing key pieces of information, and will end up failing, but starting off the fight with the government in the process.
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So some more notes on the feral!beidou turned fatui!beidou au that still has not left my head but still refuses to be written: (tw: child abandonment)
beidou's mom died in childbirth, her dad couldn't bear the pain, so he let her go in a basket in the sea, and said basket gets picked up by a merchant boat (they keep her and her name was on the blanket??) except when they sailed past guyun haishan yeeted the ship, but beidou survived (somehow) and beisht was like:... i can use this
haishan: grandma what the Fuck are you on
beisht: I have a Plan
plan: raise beidou to be on the side of the sea dragons so that when she grows up and eventually re-enters human society she can use human knowledge of seals and shit to unseal osial (beisht misses her husband, ok??)
haishan: this is going to go horribly
three(?) years later
Haishan: this has gone horribly (has a toddler beidou latched onto his horns and he's developed a soft spot. Fuck.
As per the adepti, haishan and beisht will also have human forms, although haishan's is a lot less refined but they manage
insert shenanigans
Beidou, tender age of 9(????) and with the blessing (reluctant) from haishan and co: gets picked up by passing ship
said ship: it be the rooster out recruiting- (beidou gets her electro vision because she's just that much different, and will keep on forging a path in this different direction)
beidou: proceeds to get adopted recruited into fatui (childe gets to stay as smol fishing boi because beidou wandered by one day and grabbed him before he fell into the abyss but we don't talk about this because the childe fans might shank me)
beidou, who looks and can speak liyuean (ancient liyuean but whose counting, blame the sea dragons): gets sent on mission to acquire geo gnosis
haishan vibing at home with beisht: ...something is about to go horribly
#feral!beidou au#cadri's rambles#cadri's writing#brainrot for the soul#aka ideas that i want to write but very much do NOT have the time to write right now
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About
name: Vodhaswalhi (or just Lhi)
gender & pronouns: Nonbinary | They/Them, It/Its, Xey/Xem, She/Her, He/Him
orientation: panromantic, greysexual
age: very, very, very old, don't worry about it :)
alignment: chaotic neutral
Myers–Briggs: INFP-T
race: dragon, sea serpent, ancient
vessel hair color: white, pearlescent, faintly glowing
vessel eye color: pale and opalescent, changes color in reaction to what they're seeing like a cuttlefish, black sclera
height/weight: their dragon form can be anywhere from Tiny to Gargantuan depending on how much magic they have stored/how much water is nearby (though they like being small, it's fun to sit in a martini glass). as their usual 'humanoid-ish' vessel, 8'6", 300lbs
occupation: wandering explorer, mortal enthusiast, dragon??? for hire???
residence: their lair is in the deep sea, but they wander wherever
appearance:
Vessel (refered to as The Ewer) - Their usual conversational shape is a 8'6" tall draconic humanoid with pale skin, long curling black horns, silvery iridescent hair, and color-shifting eyes with black sclera. They have a dancer's build, and often wear draping transluscent clothing, though they will adjust to fit the culture around them. They sometimes shift to make this form more alike to their company (such as becoming more human-looking), but they are plenty fine leaving their draconic nature exposed unless necessary.
True Dragon - Their true form is of a massive sea serpent, stocky in build and with short powerful crocodilian legs and fanning tendrils where wings would be. Their back is an oil-slick rainbow-black, and their belly is translucent and a faint white. Their tail starts with membranes attached to their 'wings', then at the end of it's great length is a 'hand-like' appendage of tendrils. Their face is haloed by two sets of large fins at the sides, and a mane of jelly-fish like tendrils down their neck. Their face bears six eyes, two large on their bottom jaw, two small above their mouth, and two along the sides of their snout, and all three sets can move independently. Their mouth curves up in a 'kitty-smile' (think like a beluga), and bears rows upon rows of giant sharp teeth.
(For the following: Lhi's abilities are dictacted by where they are! In most mortal realms they are as follows!)
powers/abilities:
shapeshifting/mimicry/illusion - Lhi has full domain over shapeshifting, though their truth can be spied in a shimmering outline in full moonlight! They cannot take your form/voice/etc. without permission, and if permission is revoked, they lose access to it. They always ask, it's polite!
hydrokinesis/water-breathing - born to the waters, Lhi can control water easily.
dream walking - Lhi can enter and interact with the dreams of those willing or unopposed, and should the dreamer reject them, they must leave. They use this to sing to their children and interact with mortals they are curious about.
elemental breath - as a dragon would have
saltaremancy - dance/somatic components is how they cast most magic!
resurrection (*with conditions) - if Lhi is 'slain' on a mortal plane, they return to their lair/realm to 'respawn', and this usually takes a while depending on the injury and if any aid is rendered to them
dimension jumping/portalmancy - Lhi is a serial dimension jumper, and can form portals relative to their current size to travel through. This is done using their spear as a conduit, and without it it's more like a ritual cast.
Veil Piercer (weapon) - a spear forged from glass and enchanted with Lhi's magic. It has limited shifting abilities (it can become any polearm, and can be broken to be more shank-like). It can't actually hurt you, but it may have some funny magic effects on you if you get stabbed with it.
weaknesses:
lair - when in a mortal realm or otherwise out of their lair, they are less powerful and considered vulnerable, and cannot draw upon their full godly power rampantly.
water domain - they need to recharge their magics at areas with water.
cursed - under a divine curse to always tell the truth when asked, but they can say it however they like.
fire and pyromancy - they literally carry around a hand fan to fan themself off in hot weather
divine light - what most would consider 'holy light' is irritating for them
false mortality - their body can sustain damage in any mortal realm and they will need to sleep it off, or get poofed and need to 'respawn' if they sustain too much damage.
fair play - they can be contained by magicked means, but may break out eventually depending on spell strength. if they are restrained, magic is difficult to cast as they cast with somatic components
divine law - they cannot use their god-blooded power upon a non-godly being!
gunnysacking - Lhi bottles things up. It does not end well for them usually.
Bio (WIP):
Legend says that long ago, the gods reigned, but they were distant and lofty, and their presence could not touch the mortal realm in anything but esoterics.
And so they endeavored to have children that could lay foot on planar soil. Courting mortal spouses, they produced beings less powerful by the touch of their mortal blood, but capable of interacting with the mortal realms freely.
Born to the watery abyss was Lhi, a great abyssal serpent who nested in the deep and brightened the life of the seas. Yet, as legend says, they were lonely, and took a pearl into their claws to form the first dragon egg. From there their brood grew and grew, until dragons of all shapes lived in every realm, sky land and sea. No matter how far they strayed, their brooder would always sing to their dreams if the beasts so reached out to them for it.
Legends also speak of a war between them and their cousin over the eternal war of 'knights and dragons', of a spear forged of glass used to pierce their hide that they reclaimed from their own wound, and of a pocket of their lair realm that is fractured out of time and forever spiraling until it's set right...
But as Lhi will say, through curled lips, legends are things warped by time and tongue, and you should always just see for yourself!
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I wonder if the ‘crime‘ Zunesha committed had something to do with Joy Boys promise to raise the Noah. Thats why its been wandering the ocean perhaps. Maybe its been looking for Noah or just waiting for Joy Boy to be reborn again.
Which i think fits with my sort of theory about Roger having eaten the Nika fruit but it rejecting him... because Poseidon/Shirahoshi hadnt been born yet and he had to come back when Poseidon was ready.
The blueprints of Pluton were destroyed but maybe Noah IS Pluton...
Zunesha and the Sea Kings are both ancient, mega powerful creatures who can communicate with only a couple people- one being their heir to a nation thats disconnected from the main.... ‘world‘ and the others being Roger/Luffy-- or in my thought they were communicating with ‘Nika/Joy Boy‘ and Roger ate the fruit so he could hear them but it wasnt Joy Boys time so he was rejected and it took a toll on his body.
When he died maybe Shanks was at his execution to recover the fruit but failed and thats why he ended up having to steal it later.
Jabra (of all people) talks about how a devil lives in your body if you consume the fruit... he gets kind of mocked for it but the Gorosei talking about the Zoan fruits having a will of their own sort of brings some believability to his superstition... especially when he is also a Zoan.
INTERESTINGLY. Nika being a god.... and the bearers of the ‘Will of D‘ are said to be the enemies of the gods... but I think THAT is WG shenanigans now. The gods theyre talking about are the Celestial Dragons...
Also my theory of the ‘Will of D‘ is the D is a smile. :D! The will of JOY perhaps, or LAUGHTER. They tend to die with a smile on their face.
IDK where im going with this.... Im just saying.
SHOUT OUT TO MY BOY JABRA!
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CAUGHT. UP. WITH. ONE PIECE.
HECK YEAH.
Theories and predictions TIIIIIIME-
Note that I have not checked theories so the below may be common ones the fandom would go “Awwww cute, yeah we’ve theorized that for a decade”, but I’m putting it here for laughs and to see how many hold up on further scrutiny or by the finale.
1: Sanji and his brothers have Lunarian DNA edited in by their father, since the timeline lines up for when Judge was part of MADS and King was a test subject. Also see the Seraph, so we know Dr. Vegapunk and his crew had access.
2: There is gonna be some big ass reveal with Zoro and his ability to cheat death. The fact that the reaper was looming over him is important, and he got a sword his is named after the god/ruler of hell. Oda is building some THEMES here. Plus, he got the sword Wado because of Kuina’s death, which is interesting.
3: Weevil isn’t Whitebeard’s son by the usual means, dude’s a clone.
4: Pudding has been kidnapped by Blackbeard to try and awaken her third eye to read the Poneglyphs. Also sidenote but how the heck will Shanks, Kid and Law translate the glyphs? WHAT MEANS DO THEY HAVE. THEY SEEM PRETTY CONFIDENT. ...Tho tbh Kid and Law are probably just trying to gather the glyphs before they tackle that, so Shanks is the main one I’m side-eying here. (Maybe Oden taught him how to read the poneglyphs???)
5: Blackbeard is gonna lose because the sea. Like his whole ass crew are devil fruit users. That fucking idiot. Also have we have only seen him use Haki sparingly, and seems overly dependent on the fruit. So that will be interesting. Also adjacent theory- Blackbeard as a individual is at least partly gonna lose because of Zoro or Sanji or a combo of the two.
6: Blackbeard isn’t gonna be the final battle for Luffy. I’m not sure who the final battle will be- I’m leaning towards Shanks or Im-sama, but neither of those feel truly *right* right now so IDK. I could absolutely be wrong since Blackbeard’s goal may be the same as Rocks, which was to rule the world (and symbolically Luffy opposes that because yanno. Freedom.), but Im-sama is the current ruler and system, whereas Shanks would be a symbolic final passing of the torch for the younger generation to have truly surpassed their elders.
7: Hawkeye, Im-sama and the freakin’ Elephant are all connected somehow because of their eyes DON’T ASK ME HOW. (...oooh wait does that mean Hawkeye is ancient? Huh. That... would be interesting if Zoro takes on the mantle of death/king of hell and wins against Hawkeye, finally bringing death to an immortal.)
8: Law is not going to win against Blackbeard, but he’s gonna escape with Pudding. Also her eye will get awakened which will help solve his Poneglyph reading problem. This may also bring in Katakuri again, YES.
9: Kuma may have also been a Lunarian.
10: Speaking of Lunarians, since they were the previous gods, my grand theory: There used to be a bad oppressive system during the void century, Joyboy and others attempted and successfully overthrew it, but in the fallout the government/celestial dragon factions that took over and came out on top simply put in another bad system with themselves in power instead. However there are some holes, such as why the government wanted to completely erase that history instead of spinning it as they are the true heroes and yadda yadda.
It could also be Wano is a shorter period of what ended up happening during the void century, just with the end result being worse aka what if a Kaido figure won with the Orochi types overthrown and the Kozuki types suppressed and scattered.
Alright that’s it for tonight yeet.
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My One Piece theories ranked from Basically Confirmed to Hail Marys
Basically Confirmed
The Red Line is destroyed creating the All Blue
Crocodile is trans
Zoro beats Mihawk
Usopp will command the Strawhat Grand Fleet
Laboon will help the Strawhats find/reach Laugh Tale
Vivi will rejoin the crew (not necessarily final Strawhat)
Luffy destroys Fishman Island and brings the Fishmen to the surface with Shirahoshi and the Noah.
The borders of Wano are opened and Zunesha tows Pluton to the Final Battle
Luffy will find the One Piece
80% Confident
Buggy will be (called) Pirate King
Shuggy reunion on Laughtale
Shanks will die.
Vivi is tied to the final Ancient Weapon
Blackbeard will sit on the Empty Throne
Bon Clay will be freed from Impel Down
Koby becomes Fleet Admiral of reformed Marines
Shanks is a Celestial Dragon
We learn how devil fruits work/were created
Dragon has the Wind-Wind fruit
Luffy and Sabo both get to fight Akainu
An important object to the Strawhats will eat a devil fruit.
More Likely Than Not
Red Hair vs. Strawhat Pirates Davy Back Fight
Shanks will wound Blackbeard, taking Teach's eye before Teach kills him.
Teach gets the eye-patch (its him or Luffy, I think)
Doflamingo is released from prison
Big Mom and Kaido return in some fashion
Aokiji is a member of Sword
Law performs Eternal Life surgery
Luffy dies (unless he gets the Eternal Life surgery)
Dragon & Luffy meet on Elbaf
Sabo is the one to beat Akainu
The Sunny eats a devil fruit
Hail Mary
Pudding & Sanji reunion/future together?
Katakuri joins with the crew (not a Strawhat) probably searching dor Pudding
Aisa is actually the one tied to the final Ancient Weapon (if it's not Vivi)
Wapol eats someone important.
Laughtale is under Long Ring Long Land
Kidd becomes an antagonist
Bellemy joins with the crew/Grand Fleet
Helmeppo catches his dad (seems like Oda has dropped this thread since we havent seen any hint of Morgan)
Bonus! Strawhat Matchups against the Yonkos
Luffy vs. Blackbeard
Zoro vs. Burgess
Sanji vs. Shiryu (could be swapped so Zoro gets a swordsman, but I like Sanji facing the Clear-Clear fruit again)
Usopp vs. Van Auger
Brook vs. Lafitte
Chopper vs. Doc Q
Nami vs. Devon
Robin vs. Sanjuan Wolf
Franky vs. Avalo
Jimbe vs. Vasco
Davy Back Fight
Zoro & Sanji vs. Beckman & Lucky Roux (maybe with Robin or Brook and a 3rd Red Hair for a groggy rematch?)
Usopp vs. Yasopp in a sniper duel.
Nami, Franky, & Jimbe vs three Red Hair pirates in a new ship race?
Luffy vs. Shanks to finish it out
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Inktober 2022
i actually started in 2022, but because of health and work issues i didnt finish on time x,D
List
day 1: demon + overgrown ruins
day 2: skeleton + nature untouched
day 3: wraith + ancient tree
day 4: stitched monster + deep in the woods
day 5: mummy + cave entrance
day 6: sea monster + rocky ruins
day 7: centaur + puzzled platforms
day 8: dullahan + hall of deities
day 9: plant monster + ancient altar room
day 10: dragon + windmills and grasslands
day 11: vampire + abnormal formations
day 12: swamp monster + path along the water
day 13: cyborg + underwater temple
day 14: kaiju + buried statue(s)
day 15: slime + market place
day 16: arachnid + merchant's store
day 17: harpy + townsquare
day 18: multiheaded + inn in the middle of nowhere
day 19: ape + shank town
day 20: werewolf + by the docks
day 21: yokai + by the beach
day 22: basilisk + exotic flora
day 23: winter monster + cementery
day 24: tentacled + dessert drylands
day 25: insectoid + summoning altar
day 26: zombie + volcaninc terrain
day 27: alien + crystal coves
day 28: ogre + freezing fjord
day 29: gargoyle + eldritch forest
day 30: minotaur + idle portal
day 31: favorite + astral/ plains/ dreamlands
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More Witch Hunt thoughts:
You know, it never fails to crack me up how secretely edgy Finn has been this entire time, long before ditching the Circle.
Like, you meet him and it's like uwu spirit healer nerd, but then you read the Codex and available info on spirit healers and.. these are the shadiest mf in the eyes of the templars in the tower. It literally says that once you become a spirit healer, you’re at a higher risk of possession for the rest of your life. This is a rare and dangerous profession. The templars be watching you and they’re not pleased. And that checks out for someone like Anders or 'I was quite the firecracker in my youth' Wynne, but then Finn's been there, taking the same classes (and my boy faints at the sight of his own blood, like, love pls, what are you healing? How did you train?).
But that’s not enough for one Florian Phineas Horatio Aldebrant Esquire, no. He's made Ancient Tevinter his primary field of research. Like, the ultimate bad guys™. Regularly hangs out with Hessarian's mother (you know, the dude who mercy-shanked Andraste) in the basement that is locked with the lovely named 'Victim's Door', because she's a prophetic Tevinter 'statue' that was deemed too dangerous for unrestricted access. Loses his shit over dragons. Runs around with his double dragon headed staff, like deal with it, this is Vera.
And you know how Anders makes this huge deal about the Tevinter Chantry amulet getting him executed (as an apostate, so you know, at some distance from the templars)? That shit is too damn basic for Finn. He's out here, in the Circle, wearing a replica of an old god's symbol. Zazikel, old god of freedom. Hiding a heretical Tevinter amulet from the templars, what, like it's hard?
Despite all that, he got leave of the tower 'some time ago' for his studies. And I know, I know, his parents are rich, his father is a magistrate, but part of me just loves the thought that the templars looked at this dirt-averse nerd reluctantly wearing his mama's ugly knitted hat and went like "what's the worst that could happen?".
Only for Finn to go "it’s bloodletting time" the minute he gets out (gray area spell, ok, don’t think too hard about it).
"I am a mage, hear me roar", like you were gonna contain that in the Circle once he teamed up with "I beat up a templar and took his gloves as a souvenir" Ariane? Please.
I just...I love the Witch Hunt DLC so much. So much.
#dragon age#dragon age witch hunt#Finn#Florian Phineas Horatio Aldebrant Esquire#Ariane#witch hunt squad tag#this is just regurgitating what others have already said but i was suddenly assaulted by feels#i love these dorks so much#ariane/finn#cause fuck it the three people who remember these two know i ship them hard#just had to deal with a very unpleasant person at work so let me have this
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if the strawhats were dnd characters, their classes would be:
luffy- barbarian (berserker): while he does only fight with his hands, he goes through a bunch of transformations that increase with his anger/desperation and that have a negative effect on him post transformation, so this is kind of a no brainer
zoro- fighter (samurai): probably the most no brainer take on this list, vivi literally calls him “mr. bushido” easy, next
nami- rogue (mastermind): her title to the marines is “cat burglar”, she’s not too good at combat, but she’s all about that behind the scenes stuff, this is also pretty easy
ussop- ranger (hunter): ok this is where it gets kind of dicey and i might need to explain myself. i think this fits but ONLY if the guy playing ussop has no idea how dnd works and keeps on putting his asi’s into charisma instead of dexterity until the timeskip
sanji- monk (sun soul) (with the cook feat of course): it is at this point where it might become obvious that if the strawhats were a dnd party, they would be extremely unbalanced. i mean, 4 dps characters and one brains???. but, with sanji’s diable jambe and all his kicking stuff, i feel like it fits
chopper- artificer (alchemist): another no brainer, he heals with elixirs and tinctures, he’s a doctor, next.
robin- wizard (divination): ok this one might be the most controversial but hear me out. yes her devil fruit does only allow her to spawn arms in various places. do you know what other spell allows you to do that? mage hand. also, she’s the only human who can *divine* the meanings of the poneglyphs so i feel like this fits. she also acts like an intelligence build
franky- artificer (armorer): i mean, he’s a cyborg that does repairs on the ship, what else could possibly fit? once again, the straw hats are built terribly. two artificers and no clerics???
brook- bard (blades): i mean, he’s a musician that fights with a sword, what more do you need?
jinbe- paladin (ancients): he fights using the nature oriented “fishman karate”. also he’s the strongest AND most honor oriented of the crew. kind of a no brainer tbh
bonus:
vivi- ranger (beastmaster)
carrot- monk (four elements)
yamato- druid (moon)
whitebeard- paladin (devotion)
roger- fighter (champion)
shanks- fighter (battle master)
kaidō- not a pc, ancient blue dragon
big mom- not a pc, souped up über hag
blackbeard- not a pc, evil archmage/devil
ace/sabo- sorcerer (draconic)
law- cleric (light)
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I realize Oda is about to smack down the backstory that’s been living in my head which means it’s time to drop it. Obviously, I may or may not change things depending on what we’re given in the manga and how I feel about it, but for now, here we go:
[PART ONE] / [PART TWO]
ANCIENT LORE/HISTORY OF HARDRADA:
Shanks’ mother, Astra, was descended from a tribe of people from Hardrada, a harsh and mountainous winter island in the New World. Due to it being inhabited by dragons and a people known for being ruthless warriors, outsiders tended to keep a distance. Those who dared to set foot on Hardrada’s lands, typically for the supposed wealth hoarded by the dragons or simply from a lack of knowledge, typically didn’t make it far.
In part due to the creature’s reclusive nature, the people idolized the dragons they shared the land with. They were viewed as celestial beings, a gift from the Gods, and as important as the sun itself--they protected the island and, in return, the people swore to protect them. They were loved so dearly that many of the people began taking them on as insignias, bearing tattoos and carving them into their weapons and eventually their ships. Though they were feared creatures, to the island’s inhabitants, dragons remained signs of protection and good luck.
Though they were originally farmers and fishermen, long before the Void Century, many Hardradans began to set out to explore new lands; many hoped to claim land, while others hoped to bring wealth and new resources back to improve the livelihood of their home.
Throughout the New World, they quickly became known for being fierce, plundering warriors--early explorations turned into raids; stealing from, kidnapping, and often killing civilians, before destroying the towns. Raiding parties would take everything of value they could find before setting fire to what they didn’t want, and returning to their homeland to feast and celebrate a good haul.
It was during this time that the leaders of Hardrada first gained good relations with the Giants of Elbaf. Over time, the two adopted many of one another’s customs–sharing similar religious views and feeling a strong importance of having great warriors and magnificent battles. The two islands have viewed one another as good and loyal allies over time.
Shanks would eventually claim Elbaf as one of his territories, something the giants only allowed due to the history between their people.
After centuries of laying islands to waste, their focus began to shift. Many had found what they needed in the warriors of Elbaf: powerful opponents, feasting and drinking companions, and many chose to settle there. Many of the non-giants in Elbaf in recent years are descended from Hardradans.
Others continued to spread out--settling in new lands, adopting customs and sharing their own. Those that left regularly returned to Hardrada in order to pay tribute to their beloved dragons. Many others returned home to have priestesses arrange their marriages or to have them present at the births of their children.
Much of Hardrada’s focus began to shift to trading. They offered dragon scales for armor, forged iron materials for weapons using a dragon’s flame, and used a mineral in the soil, Magnetite, which had magnetic properties, which began to be used to create log poses to better navigate the seas.
Though still unwelcoming to outsiders, Hardrada became a reliable ally to those nearby and were often paid by other islands as protection from outside threats and remained that way until the start of the Void Century.
#i've been wanting to share some of this for a while but wanted to have it ALL done#bc i feel like to actually get to shanks in his backstory/history it'll take three parts#this which is basic lore#next is void century and more lore#and then actually onto shanks' direct lineage#but i also want to get some of it out there#because i've been sitting on this for like a year now lmao#HEADCANON.#HARDRADA.#👉👈#this is mostly heavily viking inspired#next part just be like: everything changed when the void century happened#idk why today was the day for me to finish this#all the film red news maybe??#realized i had to get my ass in gear and actually get this done lmao#hopefully this makes some sort of sense
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