I have a lot to say,

Based on this tweet:

dude.

I'm making an ASL animatic btw here are some sneak peeks (these are rough sketches) (and some scenes I'm actually cutting but the art was too fun to blip into the nether) first person who can guess the song I picked, I'll give a free commission (but don't try too hard, guys)

we are pushing the ace/zoro/sanji agenda in my house today and making myself sad while I do it

Dunno if you meant it that way in your fic, but I found hilarious the idea of Mihawk kind of being a zolu shipper 😂

When he went on and on about what an amazing surprise Lucy was on the battle field I could imaging him finally seeing why Shanks chose to give the hat to her

....look I'm not saying Mihawk doesn't ship them, is the thing.

I do actually think it's interesting that Mihawk's apparent regard for Luffy is at first influenced by the regard of two people he does respect (i.e., Shanks, and then Zoro). Luffy attacks the guy who just trounced the strongest guy on his crew without a sweat and doesn't stop until he's assured Zoro is fine. Then Mihawk even witnesses the second best Zolu moment imo when Zoro swears he'll never lose again for Luffy. Luffy acknowledged him, and Mihawk's response is just "you make a good team."

Mihawk next sees Luffy in Marineford where he basically gives the same speech in canon as I gave him in the fic (though much abbreviated because oda is far less indulgent than I am).

And while he first noticed Luffy because of his relationship to others, I think this is the moment where he actually starts to respect Luffy for his own strengths. It's also an interesting character moment for Mihawk because he's almost always been portrayed up until this moment as the kind of person who does things alone and has no need for others but here he's acknowledging Luffy's greatest strength is his ability to connect with other people. It's something Mihawk himself lacks. Does it remind him of Shanks? Does it mean he's self aware enough to acknowledge his own failing by comparison here? Is this acknowledgement of the strength of human connection the reason he let two feral teenagers stay in his castle for two years? I dunno. You decide.

So Mihawk gains personal respect for Luffy in Marineford, then goes home and finds the aforementioned feral teenagers, and then Zoro asks Mihawk to train him. And like. Mihawk knows exactly why he does this. He even says as much.

Like, canonically, of course Mihawk isn't shipping them, but he has ALL THE PIECES and he knows they love each other. So I'm not saying Mihawk ships it but I'm not not saying that y'know?

Like. He knows Zoro is doing this for Luffy. He knows how important Luffy is to Zoro. He knows that Luffy is a person worth respecting.

Thank you for letting me use your ask as a zolu rant lmao but yes these were the thoughts influencing my "daddy mihawk ships it" chapters 😂

Thanks for reading!

:(

luffy being the first person to love ace Out Loud vs ace’s final words being thank you for loving me. something something gave ace’s life meaning for the first time and he carried that to his last breath. his last hug. whatever

(marineford spoilers) ripped apart

closeup of center

Another oldie (January 2023) because I'm buzyyy

Ace's expression clearly gave me a lot of problem and is sooo wonky but oh well, it is what it is

The first few beats of the drums of liberation

i think its super interesting that akainu doesnt care actually about justice. akainu wanted to kill ace, not because hes a pirate, but because hes rogers son. and the same applies to luffy, he wants him gone because hes dragons son. even if luffy and ace decided they wanted to be marines instead, akainu and many other marines would always associate them with their fathers.

i fuckin hate oda, no one man should have that much storytelling capability.

i periodically look for wano/egghead spoilers bc i just can’t help myself, and i saw a clip of luffy giving momonosuke a straw hat jollyroger and saying “anytime you wanna become a pirate, we’ll come pick you up! but no wimps allowed!!” to a crying momo. and the fucking caption was “ace and sabo i hope you know your crybaby little brother is a big brother now.” i cried for 3 minutes straight. bc oda is fantastic at making things connect and making me fucking care. ace and sabo saved luffy’s life and cared for their wimpy little brother and now luffy has lived long enough to do the same for his own found little brother. like you can’t be fucking serious; i knew 4 years before i started one piece that ace dies, i knew months before starting dressrosa that corazon dies, but oda has perfected the way he makes you care about his characters through narrative themes and storytelling that knowing what happens was irrelevant to how much those events shook me.

i’m a few episodes away from whole cake island and i’m actively putting it off bc i know it’ll have me in tears. i’ve spent months knowing about sanji’s whole backstory but i care so much about him that knowing in advance won’t matter. oda just has that kind of power over me with his writing.

im still in denial

Guess who finally finished their Ace Dial Drunk vibeo