#I mean I'm curious how we're gonna get all of them vs all of us with Jesus so. 🤷‍♂️

[cattatoir]

Anyway this is what I mean by I want to see Adam and Jesus talk

[renshengs]

Hi! I wanted to thank you for the post and you @mengyan made about names and titles for Fangs of Fortune! It's a great post and I reference it a lot.

I was also wondering if you had any resources for (or wanted to talk about) how Mandarin names in pinyin work in a modern setting. For example, I think it would be appropriate for a friend to call Pei Sijing just "Sijing" but Wen Xiao would have to be "Wen Xiao" because there aren't two syllables in her personal name but I'm having trouble finding resources i trust, especially on appropriate forms of address in different types of social settings or levels of formality in China today. I'm linguistically ignorant but curious and since I liked your first post so much, I thought I would ask you.

If talking about this doesn't interest you, then please don't be bothered by this ask! Thank you both, again, for the the post you already made.

hello! i'm so glad to know that post has been helpful to you; calamity and i both looked at the sheer variety of names the main cast used for each other and were like "hey is anyone else gonna try and organize this?" and so we did!

thankfully, and also probably expectedly, mandarin naming conventions are far more relaxed now in the majority of social settings, so you won't need to worry about anyone slinging around terms like gongzi or daren lmao. unfortunately i personally don't have any comprehensive guides on hand, and i think it'd be very difficult to try and encapsulate all the nuances of chinese addresses when much of it depends heavily on the people and also region (north vs south, different provinces), so i can only give a basic rundown of some stuff! obligatory FYI to take these with a grain of salt because other mandarin-speakers might disagree with me based on their own experiences. gonna try and be as general as possible!

between friends, naming is generally very lax; people can use each other's full names, given names, or nicknames (or a combination of all). the usage really depends on the character and how formal you think they'd be. an age difference also doesn't necessarily mean one of them calls the other one jiejie or gege bc that also depends on the relationship! for example, in canon zyc already calls wx just "wen xiao" despite being younger than her. you can make him call her "jie" in an au, but ultimately that's up to you! pretty much all the names/nicknames the fof squad use for each other are all still usable in a modern setting because their naming habits dictate their relationships with each other (e.g. zyc would definitely full-name zhao yuanzhou regardless of age and wen xiao can still use "pei jiejie" flirtatiously)

between acquaintances it's really the same thing; using full names or given names still goes! as for addressing strangers in your generation, using full names is the safest bet, or—if you don't know their name—politely casual terms of address like "da ge" (big bro) or "xiao gege/didi/jiejie/meimei".

again, a lot of it actually really boils down to the individual. e.g. for me i don't mind if someone i met very recently starts referring to me with only my given name instead of my full chinese name, but my grandmother almost exclusively refers to me by my full name even though we're very close bc that's what she does with everyone. my cousin only calls me "jiejie", and i only call her by her nickname, bc our relationship is very casual and i've never had a reason to full-name her. also sometimes using someone's full name just flows better than using only their given name LOL.

i don't think you need to worry a lot! most of the basic guides from google searches are safe to follow, like this one and this one.

if you want to get a really solid grip on how mandarin speakers refer to each other casually vs formally with age hierarchy also being taken into consideration, and have any free time or interest, i actually recommend just either 1) watching/reading more modern chinese stuff, or 2) watching variety shows like hello saturday (their fof cast episode is here) or traveling shows (zyz and zyc's actors were on this one; zyc and psj's actors were on this one), where industry people from all different age ranges interact with each other, some of them friends and some of them not. nothing better than experiencing it with your own eyes and ears!

just realized how long this is oh my god. this is as much as i can summarize, but if you have any specific questions regarding fof characters in a modern universe, you're free to dm me or send another inbox ask! hope my response and/or recommendations were of help :)

[quotidian-oblivion]

for the Melrin ask - Worst thing you think Merlin ever did. im so curious about this one

I had to think so much about this one too.

I don't know. I love Merlin, he's my favorite character. I justify everything he does, even if it's bad. That's what happens with any favorite fictional characters.

I don't want to say "Not telling Arthur sooner" or "Mistrusting Mordred" or "Poisoning Morgana" or anything of the like because, to be fair, that's a given. It's something a lot of us will lament about. Mainly because the writers did not do their job properly (imo).

I'd say, the worst thing he did, to me, is be passive.

I'm bringing up my own values and morals here because I believe that Merlin ruined himself and all of Albion by being passive. By listening to the dragon and not doing his own research. By being whatever Arthur needed him to be. By taking things upon himself. By not trusting others because that's what he was told.

If Merlin had been a little more assertive and a little more sure of himself and what he wanted, then the show would have gone on in an entirely different direction. But he's passive. For the majority of the show. The biggest time where he's not is in the first scene where he challenges Arthur because he wanted to stay true to his ideals and values which was to stand up against bullies who prey on the ones who can't defend themselves against them.

If he had been more assertive, he would have told Arthur earlier, he wouldn't have poisoned Morgana, he would have trusted Mordred or even Gwaine and the others more.

But he let himself be led by Destiny and Kilgharrah and Gaius and whoever else advised him rather than take some time to think things through first. Like Arthur does.

The thing about Merlin and Arthur here is that Arthur really is bolder than Merlin, but in a different way. He is bold in a way Merlin lacks, which is with practical and tactical matters. He questions Merlin's judgement, questions his father's judgement, Gaius's judgement. Agravaine was a main villain for season 4 because of his perfect ways of manipulation and deceit in a way that it got past Arthur's critical thinking and assertiveness. Arthur doesn't take things at face value and is willing to consider different ways things can go and the show mostly shows that when it comes to questioning Merlin's judgement (like about Agravaine and the siege tunnels and about Gwen at first etc). But in the first few seasons, he questioned his father's judgement a lot too but the fandom mainly focuses on Merlin's opinions vs Arthur's even though he and Uther had met head-on-head multiple times.

Arthur doesn't take things at face value which is why it's possible for so many magic reveal fics to look and be accurate.

But Merlin does. Merlin takes a lot of things at face value. He took Kilgharrah's sayings at face value, he took Gaius's (good-hearted but misguided) warnings at face value. He took what the druids said, what Edwin Muirden said, what Julius Borden said, what that druid seer in the Diamere episode said, and so many others at face value. Just accepted it without thinking much about it and went forward.

Don't get me wrong, Merlin has a very strong moral compass and moral thinking. But he lacks critical thinking. Something which Arthur doesn't lack. They complete each other in this way.

But if we're not looking at all that then I'd say the worst thing I believe Merlin ever did was poison Morgana because- WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK MERLIN, DID YOU NOT THINK OF ANY OTHER FUCKING SOLUTION???? HOW ABOUT GETTING MORGANA OUT OF THE CASTLE? HUH? WHAT THEN? WHAT ABOUT TELLING HER THAT HEY, I'M GONNA POISON YOU BUT DW I HAVE THE ANTIDOTE SO THAT I CAN REVIVE YOU AGAIN WHEN MORGAUSE COMES AND LIFTS THE SPELL BC I KNOW THAT YOU DONT WANT THIS EVEN THOUGH YOU THINK UTHER SUCKS. I MEAN, THE USED THAT PLAN SEVERAL HUNDRED TIMES ALREADY, WHY COULDN'T THEY USE IT THIS ONCE???????

[nothorses]

How do you differentiate, between atheist, agnostic, and anti-thiest? I've been reading your past posts about atheism, and I found it interesting how you defined atheism as an active belief in no higher power (might be misspeaking, please correct me if I am). I would call myself an atheist, but my atheism is not an "active" one - the label I find closest to what I am would be an agnostic atheist, where I can't say if there's any higher powers or not, but I live my life as if there aren't/don't ascribe or follow any particular religious guidelines. Would you consider this different from your atheism or idea of atheism? Why do you consider atheism an active belief versus a passive one (given that we're born without any beliefs in higher powers and pick that up later as part of how we're raised or choose to believe)? Sorry this ask got so long but I am very curious about your thoughts, I haven't read or had a discussion on atheism in ages.

There are a couple of asks in this ask, I'm gonna try to get into them individually if that's cool!

1. "How do you differentiate, between atheist, agnostic, and anti-thiest?"

Short answer: I don't! (With the exception of "anti-theist", which is a much more defined ideological position, i.e., being actively opposed to theism.)

Long answer: I think there is a difference between commonly-understood definitions of identities and related labels, and personal use of said labels. "Queer" is a great example: it's a super useful catch-all in academic and broad-discussion contexts, but it has a lot of (often conflicting) definitions. Lots of the people you're referring to in those contexts don't identify with that word at all, even if they fit the definition you have in mind to a T. Sometimes, you'll also be using the word to describe some, but not all of the people who could be described by it- and sometimes, people you wouldn't typically include in the word are included in it anyway just based on the way you're using it.

I think "atheism" works a similar way. There are a few commonly-understood definitions, but even those are very context-dependent; what I mean when I say "atheist" in a conversation about my specific experiences with atheism and how it has shaped my life/values is very different from what an evangelical Christian means when they say "atheist". And both of those are very different from what someone in a completely different, non-Christian-dominant country means when they say "atheist".

Lots of people interpret or use the word differently, and that's fine! Lots of people do or don't identify in ways that contradict use of the word in academic or broader discussions, and that's also fine! It's okay if terms are flexible and vague; like "queer", that can actually make them much more useful than they'd be otherwise.

Which brings us to:

2. Why do you consider atheism an active belief versus a passive one?

I think the "active" vs. "passive" differentiation is actually kind of counter to what I'm getting at when I talk about this.

I think people tend to conceptualize atheism as a "lack of belief" because "atheism" is usually understood to mean "lack of belief in a higher power"; which is (broadly, not always) true. But the conclusion they reach from this point is "so atheism does not, and cannot produce any unique or original ideas".

That is what I'm arguing against.

The piece I see missing from "cultural Christianity" discourse is, imo, that people see atheism as a kind of "blank slate" state. The idea is that atheism is a Lack of something; it's a Void. It's Nothing. Therefore, other things (Christianity) will naturally fill that void. Unless you actively fill it with a different (religion-originated) belief system, you will just naturally "default" to whatever is most dominant in your surrounding culture (Christianity).

But that's not really true! Everything you believe or don't believe about the world influences the way you think about it, how you form your values, the rest of your beliefs... etc. Religions often have a set of values and an internal logic because when you believe one thing, there are lots of other things that necessarily follow from, and support, that one belief. It's just not that simple!

I talk about it more here, but atheism has influenced my own beliefs and values a lot.

I grew up atheist, raised by atheists, who were also raised by atheists. I grew up in a culture where a lot of things were taken for granted that I did not have any reason to believe, and because I had no reason to believe them, I questioned them. I interrogated my own ideas about the world constantly, from a very young age. And from that, I developed an internal set of beliefs and an understanding of the world around me.

I came up with my own answers to questions like, "what is the meaning of life?" and, "what is our purpose?" and, "how should we treat each other?" and, "why should we treat each other that way?".

All of those answers were based in atheism, even if I wasn't really thinking of it that way at the time. All of those answers stemmed from the core understanding that there was nothing, and nobody, to give life meaning, purpose, or rules for me.

It might be technically a "lack of belief" (in a higher power) (depending on context and who you ask), but like... it's not a void. It's not nothingness, it's not emptiness, it's not a lack of purpose, value, morality, ethics, kindness, and unique, original thoughts about the world.

This one idea creates other ideas, because that's how these things work. It's unavoidable. The idea that all of these things must come from religion- and simply do not exist without it- is frankly dehumanizing. Not to mention very culturally Christian, ironically.

[queerlilchinchin]

Write in Your Style Stream Q&A

Answering the questions posed in the interest form.

If you missed it, here is the announcement post for the streams.

--

Question: Does it have to be a full chapter of writing? Fanfiction submission, are they allowed? | Also! Love this idea :D | Are you matching people up based on submissions? or is it a free for all?

Answer: No, it wouldn't be a full chapter of writing. You are literally just rewriting the same thing that's written but in your own way. So if I said "she walked down the street, feeling sweat causing her shirt to stick to her chest; it was a blistery day, just the way she likes it," you could say "it was a steamy day. The kind she liked. The hot sweat that caused her shirt to stick to her body made it extra evident just how warm it was" or however else you would word that little segment of writing.

You're basically just rewriting what's written in your own writing style. It's like Draw in Your Style, but writing. No you wouldn't be paired up. I'm going to be making writing streams where I write a piece and then you all would be doing your writing based off of it. Later down the road, if I have weeks where I'm just not feeling the writing, I may open up to if writers want to submit their writing to use for the streams, but that probably wouldn't be for a little while.

Question: Will you be opening an actual submission thing on here or will we submit through ask? If the submission thing, is there is a tag you would like us to use?

Answer: I have created an actual blog for submitting your stuff to. It will be through submissions. Asks will be reserved for asking questions you may have about the particular stream's prompt or like... questions about the streams in general. The blog I created for all of this is @wiys-streaming. There is not a tag that'll be relevant since I won't be posting the submissions. At least not directly. They'll be read and shown on the streams.

Question: Will we have to be part of the stream? Or are you going to like, read what we wrote when you start the stream?

I actually did answer this in the official announcement post, but I'll answer again anyway. I will be reading them on the stream. I'll start with "these are the submissions from the last stream" and read the submissions along with whatever credit you want (and yes, you can request to remain anonymous if you'd prefer).

Question: How long are the games and streams gonna go on for?

Answer: I'm not sure if you just mean like... will they be an hour vs 30 minutes or if you mean am I going to be running them for months or a year or what, but I imagine they'll likely be closer to like 30-45 minutes. Not super long but not super short. And I'll probably do clips for youtube short and whatnot.

Question: Will the story or paragraph we’ll be re-writing come from you, an already established piece, or from one of the participants?

Answer: To start, me. If I run out of ideas or just need a break, then I may open it up for someone to submit their own writing for specific weeks. Maybe I'll do one month every 6 months where someone can submit their writing. Idk yet. But most of it will be me creating writing specifically for the streams (so it's not like writing from my wips or anything).

Question: I'd be curious as to the timing if we join, if we're submitting/commenting entries how long would we have to do so?

Answer: 2 weeks. I also have been tossing around the idea of having it be a month and having the first week be one prompt and the 3rd week be another and just going back and forth between those to enable writers to have more time, especially with the fact that your writing will be showcased. I'm leaning slightly to the side of the latter option.

Question: I'd like to know if this will be a monthly or weekly thing, or how often this event will happen. Thanks!

Answer: Bi-weekly. 1st and 3rd week of every month. It was originally going to be Tuesdays but as I'm starting a new job but have yet to get my new schedule and I stat the new job the day before I originally planned to start the streams, I'll have to change this. I just don't know what day to yet. :) I'll let you all know as soon as I know.

Question: What do you secifically mean by game/streams? When I post my work what's the process after, if you know what I mean?

Answer: this entire thing is just a stream that's me sharing a piece of short writing I've done and then writers recreating it in their own style. That's the entire thing, so that's what I'm talking about by "streams." I'm sorry, I don't quite understand what you're asking with this one. And there's not really a process. I read the submissions, share them on the stream and that's pretty much the process. The writers don't have to do anything other than write their own rendition of the piece I share and tell me what name they want to have credited and what (singular) website/profile they want linked to (tumblr, ao3, wattpad, fanfiction, etc).

I just wanted to end by saying thank you to all the sweet comments left on the interest form poll. :) there were many really nice comments, including one that almost made me cry because you're so sweet to be concerned that I take care of myself, even if it meant pushing this project back. Thank you guys for being so nice and considerate of me. :)

Anyway! Thank you for your patience and I hope this answered all of your questions. If you have anymore, please send them to my @wiys-streaming blog and I'll edit this post with any additional questions.

WiYS "tag me to everything" taglist: @nerd-in-distress, @jvten, @steh-lar-uh-nuhs (fyi, tumblr won't let me tag your other blog or I would have), @aether-wasteland-s, @mjrino, @cheezyratz, @accountusername, @perasperaadastrawriting, @mrblazeflappybird, @forthesanityofstorytellers, @mangofen, @bigwipscholar, @pluttskutt, @doublegoblin, @crazytechpersonzreal, @sitiart, @ashesinthewritten, @achildweanedonpoison6, @quotidian-oblivion, @world-of-my-imagination, @marmeegle, @alesseia

WiYS "tag me to important stuff" taglist: @distortedwhite, @lyssentome, @ah0yh0y, @grollow, @perlen-gold, @saltysupercomputer, @vshushmshu, @lordkingsmith, @gummybugg, @quisyop, @enne-uni, @cometkov, @shado48, @cryscal, @mary-is-writing, @elizababie, @squintclover, @schmem14, @foursixtwonineoh-pieces-of-lego, @wakkoroni, @author-a-holmes, @uncannyalien

[psychewritesbs]

Ooh boy this chap is something else.

1. Sukuna vs Yuta fight is about to solidify which belief is stronger. The literal antithesis to Sukuna's rejection of love, Yuta freaking Okkotsu. Sadly, I think Yuta's about to experience his first (and probably last) loss. But I wonder whether he'd be able to impress or shake Sukuna's resolve before that happens (lol not me dickriding Sukuna so much).

2. Sukuna finally admitting that Yuji might be the one person whose soul he could never break or conquer. And yet, in true Sukuna fashion, he will not stop until he does (and he might actually succeed in the end but who knows 😅).

3. Gojo's body getting teleported to Shoko? Now I'm kinda seeing a vision of his return. Don't know how he'll get revived (my money's on a binding vow) or if he ever will but this does raise the possibility of his return. Although I'm curious if Principal Yaga's cursed corpse thing will tie up with this considering they even retrieved Higuruma's dead body.

4. And OF COURSE, my boy FUSHIGURO MEGUMI mentioned 😭. Ooh boy Gege is surely cooking something with Megumi. I remember @ShamanHoly on X saying that Megumi might not have a big role to play in the final fight against the merger (although I personally think the final boss is gonna be Sukuna) cause he barely has any plot connection with Kenjaku but this?! This changes everything! Gege has expertly maneuvered Megumi into the merger plotline, even putting him in the 'eye of the storm' against his will. I'm starting to think you're right when you said Gege is writing Megumi kaisen. At this rate I might just risk getting heartbroken (cause Gege could just kill him off if he felt like it) but my gut tells me Megumi's conclusion will influence the end for Jujutsu Kaisen.

YO!

Unequivocal love vs. No regard for others! This is indeed, the battle of battles. I love what Gege is doing here and I love that, thanks to Gojo's efforts, Sukuna is weakened, giving Unequivocal Love side an opening. I do wonder what's going to happen to Yuta but I don't see him dying. Not sure what everyone else thinks.

2. OK SO to me, this marks the beginning of the end for Sukuna. I see identity crisis happening, and I see him not assimilating the experience he's having and instead denying it. Let's see what happens. I'm sure it'll be grand 🤩.

3. The way the cursed cat has us all wondering when and how our faves are coming back. Evil. EVIL!

4. And may or may not be onto something? The thing with how Gege executes is that he's either very predictable, or completely unpredictable. I feel like as of ch 151, it's predictable that Megumi could be the one to start the merger out of despair or something like that and that Sukuna would battle him, idk. Which means that, because it's a likely outcome, Gege might choose to go on a different direction. People call them asspulls but Gege's unlikely writing choices always make sense to me in retrospect. So I guess we're about to find out!

Also, your gut feeling about Megumi. YES! idk. Everything that is happening feels very cathartic right now. I get this "healing needs to happen" vibe and I agree that that's going to influence things in a larger scale, such as the three clans and jujutsu society as a whole (aka the end of jjk).

Also número dos, DICK RIDE SUKUNA ALL YOU WANT ANON!!!! It will be a little tight and a bit awkward since we'd be up on each other's faces, but I (as well as many others) would happily join you. After all, everyone knows he has two dicks.

[fadebolt]

...ok, your tags though XD

They sure got a chuckle out of me. Don't worry, you'll soon find out about the whole LttM vs Journey's End thing (...though I did vote for Neural Terminus on JE's last matchup, but heeeey, that doesn't count, aimirite?).

Now, as for the other stuff - I was definitely curious on why you acted this way about the pronoun thing, cus from what I've seen, most people don't tend to be so careful or apologetic about this stuff. Not because it was an issue, I was just slightly surprised.

And I absolutely get you, this sort of stuff usually comes from personal experiences. The only times I was feeling bad about being called a girl was when I was like, 10, and it was used by other kids as a way to mock me for not being "manly" enough (y'know, typical school bullying). But eventually I sort of learned that it's really not worth getting heartbroken about these things, especially when I heard one of my friends burst out with laughter that lasted for minutes after he was assumed to be a girl by a stranger on voice chat. I guess it's really about how important your gender identity is to you, but I just realized that mine is really not, especially to the extent that everybody else was expecting it to be. And I just always found this to be the more healthy approach, cus I wanna be ok with being a little "girly" sometimes, goddamn it.

You could probably guess this, but the language I was referring to was Hungarian, which I recommend you stay away from. Being a native speaker meant that I never had issues with this, but a lot of foreigners struggle with the language because we modify our words. A LOT.

Because you know, English has words like "with", "as", "to", "of", "by", "from", and such, right? Yeah, we removed those and turned them into little word extenders, essentially. So think of it like: instead of "From Lizard To Leviathan", you have "Lizardfrom Leviathanto". Which means that every word has a boatload of variations (because guess what, a word can easily have multiple of these at once), which is apparently confusing for foreigners.

I'm no stranger to the dumb gendered words either though, because I got to be one of those lucky Hungarians that were born into those north Serbian areas where a few of us are living, so I also had a ton of experiences with a Slavic language. My knowledge of Serbian is unfortunately atrocious (dw, I got a boatload of flak for that, and I'll try my best to get around to fixing that... eventually xd) , and one of the big contributors to that is how hard learning the genders of all the nouns can get. I think French and Spanish, and a boatload of other languages have them too. Yeah, I don't know why, either.

One thing I found surprising here was how you claimed that people often can't tell who is what gender, which I just can't wrap my head around. With voices? Sure, that can get tricky, and people will often fail there. With looks? Nah, that's below 1%, unless we're talking about specific edge cases, which should easily get cleared up by the sounds of their voices. Masculine looking women, feminine looking men, and non binary people are a thing, but idk, these three groups all seem rather small, so they never really gave me much issues. But who knows, maybe that'll change in the future, and maybe the whole thing with pronouns being everywhere is gonna feel way less jarring eventually (if that gets prevalent, but I'd honestly be perfectly fine with that just not being the case xd)

Oh, and just in case - with the last thing, I meant that you tell me about them, not the other way around. You know, so it can be sort of like a surprise to them. I just hope the joke didn't feel bad for you, and that I made it clear that it's specifically for the people that use the situation of others misgendering them as an excuse to do extreme bullying, ostricizing and harassment, because those folks exist, and for a while, have caused me to falsely believe that non-binary people are all aggressive and crazy, so yeah. (I'm truly sorry about that btw, I used to be quite the misinformed idiot xd. I'm just grateful to have learned that most of you folks are actually reasonable and nice).

Thanks for saying that my stuff is valid btw. It's important to remember that this is all about personal experiences and preferences, which is why nobody should be pressured to put their pronouns everywhere, or to stop caring about whether others misgender them or not. You can't change how a person feels about this stuff, after all.

Ok, I feel like it would probably be nice of me to respond to this

Yes, he/him are absolutely my correct pronouns, I just don't really put that anywhere (unless I'm forced to), because I frankly don't care about which pronouns people use for me (which is why I've also picked any/all alongside the he/him in the SC, btw). I would probably correct others if they assumed I was a she/her, but I'd honestly find that more charming and funny, and not really insulting or offensive.

This is partially due to my native language not having any gendered pronouns whatsoever, but also, I feel like this recent obsession with putting pronouns everywhere is getting a tad weird (Especially when people walk up to a live stage and mention them while introducing themselves... like dude - we all know what men and women look and sound like, don't y'all think this is just a bit redundant? Feels like it'd be enough if just the they/them-s were the ones to mention it, once it would naturally come up)

Don't take this in a negative manner though, the post was real sweet, and I know this is coming from a place of kindness, which I wholeheartedly appreciate. And there's absolutely no need to edit anything - everything is perfect as it is, and seeing it all made me real happy.

Though if any of you end up accidentally misgendering someone, and that person starts a giant fuss over it - then please by all means send them to me. Or just tell them yourselves, that your pronouns are 'symbol of perfection'/'my lord and savior', and it's gonna be offensive to you if they don't use these. (Though I always wanted to pull that on a conflict seeking narcissistic jerk myself xd)

[danwhobrowses]

One Piece Chapter 1023 - Initial Thoughts

15 Minutes is on the clock

Onigashima reaches the mainland and the fights continue on. Including the Wings of the King vs the Disasters of the Beast

Without further ado, let's get into it

Spoilers for Chapter 1023, Support the Official Release too

Vivi cover page is nice, proper Disney Princess action with Karoo being jealous birb again, but now I have worries because last we heard something went down with Alabasta...all those post-Reverie questions

Back to where we left off with the boys being back in town

Miyagi can you not ominously foreshadow Zoro's future pain please?

Kawamatsu's here to save Zoro from interference, and Hyou's telling the Yakuza not to get in the way of this fight

Marco though is a pensive Pineapple, taking a good long look at King as he recalls Whitebeard telling him about King's race living on the Red Line before the world nobles, Void Century and before stuff

Mention of Gods does fuel one of my old post fan theories, but also fuels that the WG kicked King's race out of the Red Line

Izo though out here saving Marco from being an easy target, tbh Marineford did show he was prone to a surprise attack

Asking Izo if they believe in God though in a raid that may lead to their deaths is kinda irreverent right now though huh?

Queen back to hyping themselves up though

Hm? Is there a limitation to Sanji's raid suit? Sanji's saying he feels weird

Zoro wasting no time to banter with it though, saving Sanji from King as Sanji returns the favour with Queen

Queen does make a valid point though, as much as Sanji expresses that he is unenhanced by Germa he can also set himself on fire, I do wonder if it is just part of that enhancement in there that he expresses as his 'fiery hot passion'

Lunarian though, that must be King's species' name: moon people again I bet which feeds my fan theories

Also since we mentioned Germa again what happened to them? Jimbei made it out after all and I wanna see me some alive and well Baeju

I would issue doubt on Queen's claim that their enhancements are beyond Vegapunk's, given how little we know of Vegapunk after all

King's got a special sword too, it can change its edge to be teethy which he used to ensnare Zoro's swords

Wado saves Zoro's face from eating King's spiked fist though

King does make a fair point though, traditional weapons are romanticized but a fight's about getting every advantage you can, Zoro at least respects that since King never claimed to be a Swordsman, while also reminding King that he could be a feral bastard too

Kinda gave me mini Mr. 1 fight vibes there

Oh here we go, potential Zoro lineage time

Kawamatsu and Hyou muse over how Zoro was like Ushimaru when he was young, even down to his style (though that could be more Shimotsuki Koushiro's doing since he's Zoro's master)

Also Ushimaru was Ryuma's direct descendant, which means that 1. Ryuma banged, 2. Swordsmanship runs in the blood and 3. Ryuma banged

Also Ryuma also had the one eye, and it does seem pretty mythical that a swordsman of similar skill and stature returns Shusui back to Wano (even though this should mean that Shusui would be Zoro's birthright and he was kinda forced into relinquishing it)

Also worth reminding that Kozaburo was Kuina's grandpa so there may only be loose relations if Zoro is a Shimotsuki too, we don't exactly know how Kozaburo and Ushimaru are related if it's by blood or clan, plus I still wonder about Tashigi

Over to Jack vs Inu though, and Jack's hybrid form is just...weird

I did not need to see an Elephant head with abs you know Oda!

Both are pretty tired, as Jack mocks Inu saying he has forgiven Zou for the Raizo stuff, since he already destroyed most of it

Inu though with the shoulder toss, reminding Jack that they had to make these sacrifices to get to here

But we're getting the epic speech, and the hole in the roof caused by Ashura's sacrifice is changing Inu back into Su Long

Same thing is happening with Neko, turning Su Long in front of Carrot and Wanda (who I guess are covering from the moon) as he stares down Perospero

And I'm glad Neko's pointing out that Pedro's sacrifice is valid. I truthfully always felt a bit iffy about people saying that Carrot's desire to avenge Pedro was ill-found because 'Pedro killed himself'. Had Pedro not sacrificed himself then Brook and Chopper would've been dead by candy and Big Mom would've obliterated the rest on the ship

Raizo and Megaforehead though prelude with the mention of maturity, that everyone - even the Akazaya - needed time to mature into who they wanted to be

Down to the surface though and the Heart Pirates are on high alert/panic, they think Kaido's here

But it's Momo, and he looks magnificent

Shinobu's aged him up to 28, the age he'd be had he not been leapt through time, but now she's upset he looks like Kaido

There's new fire in Momo's eyes though, the return ascent begins!

Can you feel that? It feels like the last stretch before the ultimate battle of Wano

Sanji and Zoro vs King and Queen hopefully will remain a tag bout, but I am curious as to King's abilities and what's affecting Sanji in terms of the raid suit. It's not bad to have a limitation but this is the first we've heard of it after seeing him use it 4 times. I don't hate Zoro being a Shimotsuki, though I do feel like we could've built to this, plus we're still lacking in the how.

One wonders what role Marco will now play, and whether Tiny Tiny Chopper is due to recover. We haven't heard from the others for a bit, nor CP0 nor Yamato. Our Pineapple does have unfinished business with Edward Weevil tbf so he could make it out, Izo may be a variable in that, they've yet to learn of Kiku's fate.

Also we never did see who that mystery person was did we? Still could be Hiyori

Marco's musing about gods does feel like we're gonna get more about King, and more lore of the world that Robin will love to soak up like a sponge, Oda have been leaving these seeds since Skypeia, and where there are Gods, there are Devils.

We are however getting major death flags from the minks, one last turn to Su Long to enable their efforts. I like how Ashura's sacrifice is not in vain because of this though, it makes me wonder if there's a slither of hope for Kin and Kiku. If anything though the minks will die from exhaustion rather than being defeated, Su Long eats away at you after all, it's probably gonna be traumatizing for Carrot a little but I hope we see some resolve out of her more like when she was in Zou and WCI, I still want her for Nakama.

And then the final coup de grace, giant dragon Momo, it's one hell of a panel and it means we're bringing Luffy back into the fight. But the extent of Momo's ripening is only in body remember, in mind he's still young. But now we have the setup for the final fight between Luffy and Kaido, I'll expect in that time we'll have to try and finish off everything else with the Akazaya, reconvening the Straw Hats, King, Queen, Big Mom, Kid, Law, Killer, Hawkins, Apoo and Drake.

Act's not over yet, less than 15 minutes until Onigashima Falls.