#buggy’s fucking killed me because it’s fucking true

[dragonanon]

Luffy be like:

Bikinis On Top (OPLA Bikini Headcannons)

Seeing their bbygrl in a bikini opla headcannons

THis gets a lil RISQUE soooo 18+

Hey youguys i know its been a while lol I've been s swamped with work and Enjoy this in honor of hot girl summer approaching lmao I promise I'm getting back into eh groove of writing!

alos pls excuse spelling errors yall know me lmao

Luffy

-It’s hot and his shirts are open 9 times out of 10 so

-He was a bit stunned to see you with one of Nami's bikini tops adorning your chest with a nice pair of jean shorts.

-Boobs boobs boobs boobs boobs

-He's really trying to act normal but you can always tell when those big brown eyes start shifting from your face to your chest. And he always has that goofy grin on his face

-Strongly believe he's the type to impulsively bite them. lmao like literally grab two handfuls and CHOMP.

-He always was more of a boobs guy.

Zoro

-"Where's the rest of your shirt."

-He’s got his eyes skillfully flickering from your chest to your eyes then to you collar bone and again.

-“You don’t like me showing them off?” You question, slipping past him with a smile

-the funny thing is, you’re not talking about your boobs. You’re talking about the bites and hickeys he skillfully placed along them

-crazy how near the end of the day, the only thing the crew can seem to find as a trace of you is the discarded bikini top

Sanji

-He helped you tie it this morning when the sun had first been shining to brightly into your room, heating both of you up.

-personally, Sanji likes it when you wear the full piece, the straps of your bottoms just barely peaking out from the low-rise jeans you've got on.

-He also is one to pull your strings when you're also so the top just falls down to reveal the girls

-Is the type to lift you up out of the pool and set you up to sit on the steps like the goddess you are and just admire.

Usopp

-matching swimsuit set matching swimsuit set matching swimsuit set

-He always likes seeing you in a nice brown or sage green two-piece.

-won't say anything but wow when he sees you and smiles.

-Keep it polite but just know his hugs from behind will always end with him pulling at your bottom straps and letting them snap against your skin.

"USOPP!" You yelp, narrowing your brows at him while you massage the spot.

"Ok ok, i'm sorry mommas" He chuckles, pressing a kiss to the affected area, his large hands massaging the flesh of your thighs.

Nami

-Strictly a bikini gf and wifebeater+swim trunks gf duo lmao

-This can go either way actually. If she feels like a bikini kinda day it's gonna be a bright orange or a pure white with a sunhat and a nice flowy cover-up

-A she can't and won't make it easy for you to keep your hands off her,

-If YOU are in the bikini and she's in the swim trunks she REFUSES to keep her hands off you. She knows her girl looks good asf.

-Expect to have your ass smacked.

Shanks

-Is definitely keeping you on his lap while everyone else is splashing around. It was a pretty chill day and everyone decided hey why not go for a swim

"Can I please get in the water Shanks?" You sigh, pulling the strings of his swim trunks as he smiles and gives a quick "Nuh-uh"

-"Your ass looks too good. Just stay here a little longer hm?" he asks, squeezing your thighs, pressing kisses to your shoulder.

-He doesn't waste time taking you somewhere secluded to pull those bottoms to the side, somehow loving the way your ass looks in those bottoms every time he thrusts

Mihawk

-He personally likes it when you wear one of that cute pinup like 50's monokinis? And some wedges with a bandana. UGH he's gonna be right there with you avoiding the sun under the umbrella (that pale ass skin lmao)

-Will 100% lather you in sunscreen and just paper your shoulder with kisses.

-He's not taking you to eh pool he's taking you to the beach and you're just sitting together, enjoying one another company

-"I'm fucking you within an inch of your life after this." H admits in monotone, skin already starting to darken in a tan

-"Yes splendid." You reply still resting, enjoying the faint heat of the sun.

Buggy

-HAHAAAAAA this man will tear it off and then feel bad and get you another one...just to tear that off too

-is a sucker for the bikinis with anything on the boobs lmao he thinks they look like targets

-I like to think that ocean water is the only thing like that is an issue lmao so it is safe to say he's in the pool every summer, roughhousing with you and the rest of his crew

-I mean just a bunch of fucking kids lmao, macro polo, chicken fight, pretending to be a shark, you name it

-accidentally caused a nip slip tho and yelled for everyone to look away while shielding his girl.

[malicedafirenze]

I see gifs from other people‘s Astarion romance and I think I fucked mine up somehow, because I do not get the same scenes and I worry a lot that I messed it up for good by not chasing high approval early enough ☹️

(Spoilers below, allow me to be pathetically concerned about my fictional romance for a sec)

I had the sex scene at the Tiefling party, then another implied „night together“ a bit later in Act 1, both while my Approval must have been at Medium, somewhere around 35-40.

I then maintained Approval ~40 throughout Act 2 but didn’t get any romance scenes again afaik (obviously in retrospect I should have chased the approval more intently but I‘m playing too goody-two shoes for Astarion‘s taste).

Early Act 3, I got a dialogue option like „we haven‘t spent a night together in some time“, where Astarion explains that it‘s just been a transactional calculation for him. I wasn’t sure if that was a fixed part of his character arc, but I‘ve been more intent on chasing approval options since then.

I had a foursome with him and the Drow Twins, but he said I had failed to sleep with him so far, which isn’t actually true so I wonder if that‘s just one buggy dialogue or something more messed up?

I completed his quest (killing Cazador, not completing the ascension ritual) with approval at about 60, and by now it‘s 65 (Very High).

After Cazador, I got some dialogue of Astarion needing time to process stuff, but nothing explicitly romancey.

I only have a handful of quests to finish in the game and I‘m really worried I fucked it up with the romance for good somehow.

I don’t even think I could just pivot to another character at this point, because although my approval rating from Shadowheart and Karlach is at ~100 (Exceptional), I never had *any* romance dialogue options from them, apart from Karlach during the Tiefling party in Act 1, where I picked Astarion instead.

Someone help pls I put like 100h into this game and I want my happy ending.

[racke7]

Me vs Divinity 2 mods

A long time ago, I was trying to find a good "necromancer"-mod for Divinity 2, because it's an incredible class, but also an extremely limited class.

(Do lots of damage in your first turn, then be stuck with 5+ turns of standing in a corner scratching your head.)

Obviously, one of the first mods I found was Odinblade's Spectre Class, which includes a lot of necromancer-spells that all give the enemies the status-effect of "Agony" (a piercing-damage that stacks up to five times, and that will trigger DoT every time it gets reapplied).

Now, I didn't really like the aesthetics of the Spectre-class, and having the ability to do as much damage from a distance as a knight-class could do from up close, for half the Action-Points of the knight?

It was... kind of broken. Felt very unequal. (Why bother building anything other than necromancers, if they just click-and-kill everything on the field?)

I've tried a few other necromancer-mods since then, and feel like Odinblade's Necromancer Overhaul does some interesting stuff (as long as you erase that stupid "take damage to do damage"-requirement).

However, a while back I looked at the Spectre-class again and realized that it has a lot of spells that I never had an opportunity to try. Because my enemies would die long before I managed to get enough "Agony-stacks" on them for the cool stuff to happen.

This made me think about other ways to apply "Agony" to enemies, which made me think about those shitty "set X"-enchantments you can find on a lot of weapons (they're RNG, often completely useless, and take up an enchantment-slot that could be used for something that actually helps you).

So, I cobbled together a shitty little mod that created a weapon-enchantment that "set Agony", and then I figured I should test that out to see how it worked.

And it was insanely broken.

See, if you're dual-wielding (like a rogue), your attacks will always make Agony stack twice. Even when you only attack with single-hit skills.

Which made me think, and which then made me try to use "Daggers Drawn", which hits five times for relatively low damage. And... I think I did maybe 2k damage with Daggers Drawn, and nearly 1k of piercing-damage from Agony-stacks ticking over.

That is... an absolute fuckton of extra-damage. And it being piercing-damage means that a lot of things with "infinite armor, but not a lot of health"? I could pretty much one-shot them with this.

Now, I bring this up because this morning I started thinking about what a "true Agony-build" team would look like, and realized that the only one who couldn't be dual-wielding (and thereby do gleeful amounts of piercing-damage) would be the ranger.

It's famously difficult to dual-wield bows, but it set me thinking about if someone had made a 1-handed crossbow or something. And I did actually find a mod that did that, which also... replaced the animation with melee-weapon animations? What?

Turns out, after going into the mod-engine myself, it's pretty easy to make crossbows into 1-handed weapons, and not very difficult to adjust their base-damage to compensate. However. Doing so causes this animation-glitch to happen, and there doesn't seem to be any fucking way to access those animations (I was thinking I could replace the crossbow ones with those of wands instead, but nope, can't find either of them).

So, provided that I want to play as an Agony-based party, and is willing to deal with buggy animations? I've solved the ranger-problem.

(Another alternative I was considering to solve it, would be to instead use wands that scaled with Finesse, and then tie-in the Huntsman-skills with those. But I don't know if that would be better.)

And yes, it was hilarious to be able to hit regular people six times with the source-machine-gun and have it count as twelve stacks of Agony.

But hmm... It's probably a bit too powerful to actually play like that.

It makes all the classes powerful (so you have good reason to play anything), but insta-murdering all enemies isn't... super-fun in the long-term.

Which meant that I went looking into the unpacked files of the Spectre-class, to try and track down whatever is responsible for the damage-scaling of the Agony-stacks. Aaaand... I found nothing.

The closest thing to a "damage" that I could find anywhere related to the Agony-status? Was that it mentioned DoT at one point, which could mean one of two things.

1 - It exists, somewhere in the mod, but it's hidden away so thoroughly that I'll never find it.

2 - It doesn't exist, and is instead using some kind of hard-coded in-game "this is how much stronger DoTs become as you level"-chart.

You'd think that number two sounds insane, completely ridiculous, right? Why would they hardcode something like that into the game?

Probably the same reason they hardcoded so many other fucking things into the game.

[melkyt]

In my fic behind the scenes, newly reborn sixteen year old Doflamingo trying so hard to flirt and woo Crocodile.

While Crocodile is a 36 year old with one kid in college (Robin) and another that he is trying to fix a relationship with (Luffy), while also navigating whatever he still has with Dragon, while getting mixed feelings about the mess he has with Mihawk and Buggy. He has no time for a child, who is his kids' future boyfriends (Law's) age. Especially not a kid that was an adult three years ago and tried to kill his son, and got de-aged for being a shit xd. Crocodile is struggling lol

Doffy determined not to give up. The one looking after him is Cora and is just happy that this is what Doffy is channeling all his energy towards this instead of trying to murder or come up with world domination schemes. It's actually peaceful, and he gets to be an older brother now.

Though Doffy and Law both being sixteen years old, means double the teen drama because they will both fuck with each other and bicker. They pull intricate pranks that only stay low-key because neither want Cora to get hurt if he stumbles on the prank first. They may hate each other, but they care for Cora xd

Its a messy family on all sides in this fic, but it's better than what was, slowly getting to chapters where they are all happy xd. Gonna make Doffy a model ✨️

Lawlu have eight years before they officially start dating, and maybe after part 3 ill do a time skip, or not

Still deciding as i balance the Ages and Age-Gaps, the true struggle of reincarnation fics xd

Not that I care mind you, 13-16 year old Luffy is going to want to kiss Traffy, like any teen discovering his vibe, 20-23 year old Law is gonna be like nah, not until your atleast 18, go kiss someone your own age first, then see if you want me then. Luffy pouts and just goes fiiiine 'ill wait'

[sordidmusings]

Man why tf some of the best writers on this site get shorted on interaction dude like this needs SO MUCH MORE ATTENTION

Grabbed me right away and had me entertained the whole time!! The characters really live in it, some of my favorite I’ve read!! I also enjoy the reader and their motivations and where they were set up in the crew for a split to make sense and hurt the least (thank u my heart is weak in making the straw hat Captain sad lol) there’s so much personality in the authorial voice too and I just adore it

The additions to canon are really sweet and fun too and I truly enjoyed them!!

Made the dumb meme for this lol cuz it’s TRUE

Annotations/thoughts/yada yada below the cut because I think imma try and do this for some of my reblog as best I can! I do it if I read someone’s stuff on docs and it’s usually liked so why not here 🤷🏼‍♀️

The first thing that struck me was that you dONE IT you’ve got the personality of the chara in focus in omniscient perspective which is a favorite tone of mine! It immediately brings me in and makes the read an engaging experience! It’s very smart to show that card early to hook readers 👌🏻 and Buggy’s perspective is so fuuuuuuun I love that over reactive fucking mess with my whole heart 😩 you’ve done him wonders. And also multi-tasked - the humor told us exactly where to orient ourselves in the plot so that’s a real good use of word count!!

Also Buggy. Sir. May I offer myself as a replacement bendy little shit?? Not as bendy as Luffy but I can work on it-

Also I would like to fuel Cabaji’s conspiracy theory that Buggy dual wields devil fruit - we could get a head start on that propaganda to really build up that large than life persona for his adoring fans and enemies alike. All hail the King of the Clown Cult, long may he reign 🙇‍♂️

CACKLING AT THE “This is Shanks’ fault” cuz at first I was like lol I bet that dumbass blames everything on Shanks and then .5 seconds later it hit me HES KINDA RIGHT

The family heirloom thread caught my eye 👀 good restraint at leaving us wanting more

Dudjdhdjbdkdbdk “you dead?” “That’s a no then” has got me CACKLING

Koby being nervous is so cute I adore the sweet boy but got distracted from that cuz ITS SO BIG BRAINED TO HAVE LUFFY THINK SHES A CLOWN OMFGGGGG i love that you thought of that!!! And that it’s a fun turn on the obnoxious insult shitty people use when they aren’t comfy with the amount of makeup a woman wears when Luffy says it with no ill will and total acceptance and simple misunderstanding lol

“A smile wider than the grand line” is such a cute and perfect description for Luffy and I’m in love with it, it’s pretty simplicity, and the sweet man himself. Truly I’m eating up this whole meeting. It’s so heartfelt and endearing and full of character. You captured Luffy so well in all the scenes he’s in and it’s making me even more eager to read your fic for himmmmm

The reader’s plight in feeling out of place is something I struggle with a LOT. Due to many factors I sometimes have issues communicating with other for a variety of reasons on sliders between both my own inherent flaws and the gap of understanding from others and it can be disheartening and you show it well. Neurodivergence a bitch 💀 time to run away and be an AuDHD clown 🤘not knowing your dreams is its whole other can of worms too and yet another great choice.

The detail of Luffy pilfering your food during Real Talk is exceptional and so on brand and I love it sm 💀

NOT KNOWING WHAT YOU TRULY ENJOY AND RESONATE WITH BECAUSE YOU WERENT ALLOWED IS ALSO SUCH A VIBE 10/10 READER

The moment you mentioned a hat from the two boys I perked up hoping that we had a dream summer with Shuggy because I would KILL FOR THAT O M L makes me real eager to get to the introduction to Buggy and see if they recognize each other 👀👀👀 you’re very good at building interest/anticipation!

Oh boy howdy is reader’s trust in Luffy poorly placed because yeah he wouldn’t intentionally spill the beans but he’s only ever kept like one secret well 💀 tho the odds are on her side because seeing someone’s emotions about a thing is usually how he sorts the importance of it

Yet again, I am in love with your Luffy and Need Him to shower me too with that blind and unbending hopefulness and encouragement 😭😭😭 what a treasure

OOOOOOOOO IT WAS THE DUMBASS DUO THAT WE MET IF YOU KNEW ROGER-

Yet another OOOOOOOOOOO went off in my brain that we know of Buggy 👀 first thought was that we’d recognize the nose but at the same time if seeing a wanted poster one would probably assume the nose and hair were just part of the getup and there’s also enough people in One Piece with funky colored hair including blue 🤷🏼‍♀️

Loving reader’s consistent protectiveness of Luffy 😩 great character trait 👌🏻

“This I was not the time to think the enemy was funny” first off Zoro it’s always time to think the enemy is funny, second it’s Buggy the fuckin Clown dude, and third Luffy is at one of his biggest buffs when he finds enemies funny So There

YES SIMP FOR THIS MANS EYES they really stole all our hearts man they’re too fuckin pretty holy sHIT the soliloquies required to capture their essence 🤌🏻

I love your tone and sassy asides - it’s something I love to try to do because I enjoy reading it so much and I admire your skill in it!!! They keep me giggling and you put them at the right moments around and it helps keep the mood dynamic throughout because serious things feel more serious by contrast to the humor

Damn, Buggy, your roast of our clown status cuts deep 😭😭😭 a girl is trying to fill shoes she didn’t even sign up for my guy and you’ve seen clown shoes that’s gonna take some damn TIME

GDIDBDKDJ Luffy’s question about Buggy’s nose setting off Mom Mode in reader is sending me 💀

I enjoyed how you recounted the show scenes!! It’s hard to keep readers interested when telling them things they already know but your recounting is engaging and chooses good details to include and exclude. The interjections help a lot 👌🏻

I adore Nami BUNCHES but still loved the vicious call out for her cuz while I get her reasoning it does fall squarely under the category of “Dick Move” 💀 also shows some real viciousness in reader and in conjunction with the concept of loyalty 👀 something I admire Much and that would be VERY GOOD for our dear clown

Ooooooooooo very smart of reader (and you) to start up the ploy she has the map to keep her in the room with Buggy instead of taken out with the others. All around you’ve made many good decisions on why she’d be around him and grabbing his attention too!!

Oh the things I’d do to have Buggy call me Dollface and whine at me 😩😩😩 he gets a free pass for all the complaining and griping in the world as long as I get to stay in his presence (I’m totally not down bad at all no sir 🤡)

READER DROPPING THE DEEP LORE IS SO GOOD AND THE DRAMATIC IRONY OF THIS WHOLE SITUATION IS DELICIOUS

AAAAAAAAAA AND SHOCKING HIM BY FLIRTING WITH HIM OH MY GOD THATS ONE OF MY FAV TROPES EVER PLEASE MORE I AM BE G G I N G

The beats of their interaction after this are just perfect all the little details like the eyes widening him trying to get back on his game and his fluster and just all of it are so good!! (Also totally barking at getting up in his personal space, you know but like Casually)

The whole paragraph beginning with “Buggy’s eyes were blown wide again” has me so SOFT so prone to kickin my feet so GIDDY it’s so suddenly tender and genuine and oof just my heart 😩

AND MY HEART EVEN M O R E AT HIM ASKING IF ALL OF IT WAS A LIE AND THE TREMBLING GRIP I JUST

I NEED HIM HE NEEDS KISSES AND I CANT GIVE THEM TO HIM AND AHSHXBSJZN 😭😭😭

✨STARSHINE✨ what a wonderful choice for a pet name from dear Bugs!!!!

The plea for him to not kill Luffy is so sweet and I love it and having that hold over Bughy is so good and I’m thinking to the future when Cross Guild is a thing and they gotta fight Luffy and Buggy is just there sweating under the piercing gazes of his cohorts being like “so no problems with the plan right, clown?” And he musters up all his courage to warble out “w-well actually…” because he can throw almost anything away to save his skin but you begged him. You begged him. Too bad that might get him killed at the moment - that sword and that hook were looking so shiny and so so sharp

Thank you for keeping up the real Straw Hat Tradition of the crew copying Luffy’s nickname for allies 💀 zoro saying “clown lady” was just too perfect lol also Zoro needs to loosen up cuz her humor is great 😤

“Luffy, ever the little shit” PREACH lol such a beloved little shit 💕💕💕

🚨BUGGY IS SWOONING OVER READER I REPEAT BUGGY IS SWOONING OVER READER THIS IS A CODE PINK READY THE PILLOWS FOR SCREAMING IMMEDIATELY🚨

Never fear, dear reader, you will be seeing the failclown again 🤍

IM LOSING MY MIND AT LUFFY ENCOURAGING READER TO BE A CLOWN FULL CIRCLE AND BEAUTIFULLY ABSURD 💀💀💀

The use of government name had me snickering ngl

“He talked about a lot of girls” ah Shanks you fucking dog I love you with all my heart you sleazy beach bum 🥰

BEING BUGGYS FIRST CRUSH HOLY S H IT IM LOSING IT IM-

GALE CARDINAL AND PEACOCK ARE SUCH CUTE NICKNAMES WTF I ADORE THIS SO FUCKJNG MUCH OTS SO SWEET THE ADDED LORE IS SO GOOD

THE LAST LINE RIPPED MY HEART OUT HOW DARE YOU BUT ALSO THANK TOU FOR IT AND THANK YOU FOR THE FOOD 🙏🏻

The Princess and her Fool (Buggy D. Clown/Reader) 1/4

Inspo: GOSSIP-MÅNESKIN

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Word Count: ~7.9k

Warnings: Cursing, canon typical violence, insecurity, descriptions of peril.

A/N: MÅNESKIN is Buggy coded, no I won't elaborate, it just makes sense. So is Ashnikko, esp Cheerleader. Listen to it in context then judge me. All the chapters are inspired by different MÅNESKIN songs.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Buggy was furious. First, he woke up on the floor because it stormed during the night. Second, no one had their shit together during rehearsal. And third, worst of all, soME KID STOLE HIS FUCKING MAP! HE WAS GOING TO INVADE IN TWO DAYS, ACTIVELY FINISHING HIS PLANNING WHEN HE SAW THAT BENDY LITTLE SHIT MAKING OFF WITH HIS MAP! UNCALLED FOR! OUTRAGEOUS! IT’S BULLSHI-HIS. FUCKING. MAP?!?! FUCK!

Buggy snarled as he threw one of his throwing knives at the mast in front of him, “We’ve got a fucking show to do fellas! Hop to!” he sneered, aiming a dagger for the feet of the closest crew member. The crew scattered to their positions, Cabaji staying by Buggy’s side.

“What exactly is the plan, Captain?” the unicyclist asked.

“Get. My. Fucking. Map, Cabaji.” Buggy hissed, poking out another knife from seemingly nowhere, resting the tip on Cabaji’s nose. Cabaji often wondered if the captain had eaten two Devil Fruits, a secret one that let him be such a fiend with those knives, a paranormal, infinite number of them at his disposal. “Board their ship, knock them out, and find my map.”

Cabaji sighed, wheeling backwards, away from the knife’s tip, “Yes, Captain.” He said, wheeling away to bark orders at a few out of place “freaks”.

‘Somehow…this is Shanks’s fault.’ Buggy thought bitterly, slinking back toward his throne, ready for a performance of a lifetime.

You felt a little out of place. You couldn’t help but shuffle your rice around your bowl as you thought about where you were.

You had run into the one and only Monkey D. Luffy when he was on his way to steal the map to the Grand Line from Ol’ Axe Hand. You were on your own little mission, searching the sea for…let’s call it a family heirloom. You were out for blood, but forced to run out of gas as you floated along the expansive seas. Your skin burned and blistered as you stared at the horizon line of nothing but blue all around you. You had been lost at sea for days, no food or water, nothing but the torn-up gown on your back. You were losing hope of surviving. That’s when you heard it.

“HEEEEYYYY!! YOU OKAY?!” you could barely drag your head to look in the direction of the loud screaming, a small rowboat, little more than a dot in your blurry vision. You sighed out a breath of relief, flopping an arm over the edge of your own rowboat. A small sign that, yes you were alive, yes, you need help. “DON’T WORRY! WE’RE COMING!” you felt your eyelids close against your will. A small wave of peace washing over you.

“You dead?” a voice asked tentatively from beside you, what you assumed to be an oar poking your backside a little too hard, drawing a pained groan from your dry throat. “That’s a no, then.”

You peeled your eyes open with a wince, two young men? Boys? Were in front of you in their own little rowboat. You’d later come to find their names to be Luffy and Koby.

“Whatcha doing out here, lady?” Luffy asked, almost tipping his boat over by hoisting himself up on the edge to see you better.

“W-“ you sighed at your scratchy voice, “Water?” you rasped, reaching your sunburnt hand out toward the boys.

Koby flinched back, scrambling to grab a large canteen of water from his feet, thrusting it into Luffy’s hands. “You-you do it.” He whimpered, shifting further away from you in his seat. Luffy laughed a bit, unscrewing the cap, but extended his arm out to you, the open canteen’s rim meeting your greedy lips. The water flowed too fast, covering your face, but you didn’t care, reaching a hand up and taking the canteen from your face. Luffy grinned wide and sat back.

“So, why are you out here, Clown Lady?” Luffy asked, eagerly shifting in his seat.

“Clown Lady?” Koby asked.

“Yeah, that big frilly thing she’s wearing, and the paint on her face! She must be a clown!” Luffy justified, crossing his arms.

You huffed a laugh, mustering all the strength you could to sit up, “Not a clown.” You explained, the gravel in your voice quelled only slightly, “Just a big poofy dress and messed up makeup. I was chasing some Marines, got stranded.”

Koby recoiled, “Why would you be chasing Marines?”

You snarled at the thought, “They stole something of mine. I need it back.”

Luffy’s grin stretched even further, “I can help with that!” you eyed him down, looking for deception in his pure, wide eyes. “Join my crew! I’m gonna be the King of the Pirates!” he exclaimed, giggling a bit.

You blinked at the boy in front of you, taking in his scrawny frame, the little scar under his eye, his straw hat, a hat with a complete sense of Deja vu you couldn’t get rid of, and a smile wider than the Grand Line. King? Well…actually…maybe. The boy didn’t look like much, but the fire in his eyes, the pull in his chest to adventure that you could practically feel, the love and care and hope oozing from every pore. A pirate? Yeah. In the hazed light of the afternoon sun, in your dehydrated mind, your heart skipped a beat. You thought you saw Gol D. Roger in front of you. You felt his warm smile, his laughter ringing through your ears. Yeah…he could probably do it.

You set your jaw, trying to chase away the sting of tears, “Okay, Kid. I believe you.” You said, holding out your hand to shake. Koby’s eyes bulged, and Luffy all but cackled, “I’ll join you, but I have a few conditions.”

“Fine by me!” he had said, shaking your hand immediately, dragging you into their rowboat, and the rest is history. You had been pretty useless in helping get the map, but your knowledge of Marine’s bases and ships’ construction and layout helped more than you’d know, dangling from first Luffy’s back, then eventually Zoro’s.

So, there you sat, mulling over your rice. It hadn’t been long since you joined Luffy and became a “Straw-Hat”, and as much as you believed in the kid, and even though you got along with Zoro and Nami, you couldn’t help but feel unwanted, a little on the outside. Even if you had technically been the first one to join, you kinda felt like you were tacked on, like this wasn’t where you belonged.

You had three conditions in joining Luffy, 1. He and the other Straw-Hats were to help you find your heirloom, 2. You would stay with Luffy until it was found, 3. When it was found, you would be allowed to leave whenever you were ready, to make your own path, your own life. Until then, you would be the most loyal crew member the Greenhorn Captain had ever heard of. You would ask how high, you would “bark” on command, kill without hesitation. You hadn’t had to prove it, nor the chance to yet, but you could feel it coming. Something’s brewing. Something’s on the horizon, and it wasn’t a rowboat.

“Hey, Clown Lady! Whatcha up to?” Luffy asked, plopping next to you, already stealing a clump of rice from your bowl. You sighed and handed the bowl over, resting your head on the table in front of you.

“I’m thinking and I’m sad, Luffy.” You had long given up on correcting him that you were not, in fact, a clown. Luffy’s face scrunched and he paused his ravenous shoveling of the rice into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully for a moment, “Why are you sad?”

You hesitated, but relented, knowing this would only nag at you until you talked about it, and raised your head, but only half facing your rambunctious captain. “I feel like…I don’t belong here.” You finally spat out, shoving your face into your hands so you didn’t have to see the younger man’s expression. “I feel…different. I’m not…special like you guys.”

Luffy went to interject, but you slammed your hands off your face, pushing yourself to face him fully, “I don’t have a devil fruit, I’m not a great swordsman, or a great navigator. I’m some lady you found in a rowboat on the verge of death who has very little that’s spectacular or at all interesting about her other than some family heirloom that I don’t even know if I fully want to tell you about.” You exclaimed, grabbing the captain’s shoulders, “Don’t you ever just-just-” you huffed in frustration, shaking Luffy a bit, “-feel like something’s missing?!” Luffy looked at you with wide eyes, his arms pinned to his chest, a weird expression on his face. You sighed loudly, letting the poor man go and turning back to the table, suddenly infatuated with the wood grain, heat rising to your face.

Your captain called your name softly, “What’s your dream?” he asked.

You shrugged, “I don’t really have one. I have…goals I guess.”

“What are they?”

“I want to find my father’s-um my family heirloom,” you stuttered, revealing a touch more than you had before, “I want to carry on his mission, I guess. Keep it safe. After that, I don’t know. I’d like to fall in love maybe.” You rambled, all rather noncommittal in your tone.

Luffy nodded thoughtfully, setting aside the now empty bowl you had your rice in. “What do you like to do?”

You thought for a moment. God, it had been years since you thought about what you liked, what you wanted. You had to set it all aside for your father, for your family. The last time you remember having fun was when you were fifteen, when two boys that were your age came to visit your island, they taught you knife throwing, tried to show you how to sword fight, showed you the ship they lived on, but most of all, you thought of the way they showed you how to perform. They weren’t able to steal around the island, for fear of your family overpowering their crew and kicking them off before they had their fill of fun and food, so they needed money.

They had you bring them to the town square and set one of their hats on the cobbled ground and for hours the three of you did little tricks, danced, sang, told stories, or showed off some of the skills they had been teaching you for tips. The echo of your laughter and glee bouncing through the city, chorused with the boys’ joyous hoots and hollers into the sunlight. You had scrounged the tips together and used the money to have a ball that night at the summer festival, running through crowds with fried dough and masks of monsters and beasts of old, only stopping to watch the massive fireworks in the night sky, dancing under the colorful sparks for nothing but yourselves, cheers from all around.

Your eyes threatened to well up at the thought, not a day goes by that you don’t think of those boys, hoping they’re doing okay, that they got to grow up as carefree and happy as they were with you. That was the last summer you were allowed to be a kid, “I like performing.” You whispered, barely wanting to voice such an absurd thought. That everyday could be like that summer. That you could feel the thrill of all those eyes on you, all that joy directed at what you can do.

Luffy sat up and grinned, “Is that your dream? To perform? What do you do?” he asked, genuinely happy to have helped you down this train of thought. “C’mon, tell me!”

“I learned how to do a few things over the years, I’m good at acrobatics cause of all the ropes I’ve dealt with on ships, I love to dance, I-“ you laughed as you said the rest, “I learned how to fire breathe and throw daggers really well too!” you grabbed a worn, old throwing knife from your side and tossed it in your hand, Luffy’s eyes sparkled in wonder as you went on, “You weren’t the only one with a weird childhood, kid.” You teased, nudging him with your shoulder, before grabbing the blade at the end and launching it straight at the wall where it stuck with a light twang.

“Why don’t you do that?” Luffy exclaimed, gesturing to you, your face more specifically, “Just talking about it has you smiling more than I’ve ever seen you!”

You chuckled a bit, but the sad gleam returned to your eyes, “I can’t. I have to protect the Kaku Kaku no Mi.” you explained. Luffy furrowed his brow, and horror dawned your face, “Forget I said that! Luffy, this doesn’t leave this conversation.” You whispered, holding his face in your hands, eyes boring into his.

Luffy’s eyes widened in excitement and awe, “You’re looking for a Devil Fruit?!” he exclaimed, your hands over his mouth muffling the last two words from leaving his mouth.

“Yes!” you whispered, tears close to falling, “And no one can know! I trust you, so it’s okay that you know, but you must promise me you won’t say anything to anyone. Not even Zoro and Nami.” You pleaded, hands still covering the captain’s big mouth. “Please, Luffy. As my Captain, I’m begging you.”

Slowly, your captain’s eyes softened, and he nodded, gently taking your hands away from his face, and in a pure moment of sobriety, Luffy spoke, “I’ll keep your secret, Clown Lady,” he said, a small smile spreading over his lips as he added, “Only if you promise me that you’ll follow your dream. Go perform on the biggest stages you can find. If not for you, for me.” His words were punctuated by a hand being raised; pinky outstretched in a childish pact. One that you hadn’t seen or made since you last saw one of those boys that summer, vowing to see each other again.

Tears fell down your cheeks as you choked out, “I can’t just-!”

“Yes, you can.” He chortled, “I just told you that you could. You have permission.”

You froze, the tears coming harder, but you felt a weight falling off of your shoulders as you wrapped a shaky pinky around his. You yanked Luffy by the join and pulled him into a deep hug, his arms wrapping around you twice with his rubber abilities. “You’re such a good kid. Roger would be happy to have you as his successor.” You whispered into his hair, laying a quick kiss onto the crown of his head.

Luffy pulled back a bit, eyes shining, “You knew him?!”

You giggled, swiping a stray curl out of his face, “Not for long-“

You were cut off with a BANG and a LURCH. You held Luffy to your torso as you were both flung to the floor, shielding him from potential impact.

“We’re under attack!” you exclaimed, already rushing to your feet, the captain not far behind. You both ran out to the deck, Zoro and Nami already there, weapons drawn.

“Who the fuck is that?!” Zoro roared, looking in all directions through the grey smoke.

You felt woozy all of a sudden, red overtaking the grey, “Luffy! The map!” you yelled, pushing him over toward Nami, coughing and trying to balance against the railing of the ship, “INCOMING!” you yelled, dropping to the floor, clinging to the rails. Another BANG and a LURCH cut through, the red smoke billowing farther. You peered through a gap in the sea of crimson and saw a curious jolly roger. “Is that a clown?” you mutter. The last thing you see before you pass out is Luffy swallowing the map, Nami and Zoro already passed out. With your last moments, you reached out to the barely conscious Luffy.

“Wake up!” came a hiss from next to you, you tried to rouse, your eyes barely blearing open. A harsh kick to your foot made you jolt to attention. Your eyes met Zoro’s as you tried to blink the drugs out of your system, finding all four of you in a large wooden crate. The other three were already standing, looming above you.

“What the fuck?” You mutter, trying to stretch the soreness out of your neck.

“Where’s the map?” Nami whispered.

Luffy waved her off, “Don’t worry about it! It’s somewhere safe.” He assured cryptically. You two shared a look, and you gave him a small nod, you weren’t saying shit.

“Marines must’ve found us,” Zoro huffed.

You and Luffy shook your heads, “Pirates.” You droned.

“Yeah, I saw a big, weird Jolly Roger.” Luffy explained.

You nodded, “Uh-huh. Kinda looked like a-“

“-clown.” You both finished. After a moment, you blanched. You knew who a clown in the East Blue was. “Oh shit.” You whisper, standing up and trying to find a way out of the crate, futile as it was.

“What’s your problem?” Nami asked.

You looked her dead in the eye, “We might’ve pissed off the wrong guy already.” You mutter, cryptically.

With that, the crate’s walls fell to the ground, all of you squinting under the harsh spotlight. Circus music played all around you as performers swung above you, cycled past, fire breathers a little too close for comfort, all the while a chorus of flat applause echoed over the music. When your eyes adjusted it took you a second to notice the audience and their distress, taken by the barrage of talents all around you. When you do, you lock eyes with a woman who’s jaw trembled and eyes widened, tears threatening to fall as she mouthed a small, “Help.”

Nami lowered Luffy’s clapping hands next to you, “If we die, Luffy,” you locked eyes with the young captain, “I’ll kill you.” You hissed, pushing the younger man behind you. You, Nami, and Zoro forming a bit of a triangle around him.

You whipped your head toward a backstage entrance, a resounding voice demanding attention, “No, no, no, NO!” the pirate yelled, rushing into view, “Stop clapping! Stop clapping!” he insisted, marching into the ring, “No! This is all wrong!”

You squinted trying to get a proper look at the source of the voice, but he was in the dark, not quite lit up enough to see his face. “The spotlight was late.” He exclaimed, “You completely missed my entrance!”

‘Ah, that’s why I couldn’t see him.’ You thought with a smirk.

The man gestured wildly, getting the spot tech’s attention, physically guiding them to find him. The comedic timing and absurdity caught you off guard, and you found yourself suppressing a laugh, just a soft snort coming out. Zoro glared at you over his shoulder, this was not the time to think the enemy was funny.

“-And where was the dancing lion?!” you got a good look at him now; he was a clown. A handsome clown. The first thing that struck you was the way his eyes caught the light. They shone in a way that struck you, your heart skipping a beat, a sense of nostalgia washing over you. His makeup was perhaps a little worse for wear, but he looked pretty stressed. Pissed might be a more accurate word, really. Nonetheless from where you stood, he was a very attractive man, a squared off jaw, stubble peaking through along it. His face was screwed up a bit in annoyance, but you couldn’t help but think he was pretty. He had blue hair and a colorful getup, topped off by an orange captain’s hat, his clown-y jolly roger positioned proudly at the center. There was no question about it, this was one of the most prolific captains in the East Blue, Buggy D. Clown. You all were fucked.

“Hey!” You whipped around to grab Luffy by the arm, try to stop him, but he persisted, “I know you! I saw your wanted poster in Shells Town!”

“Don’t say something stupid, Luffy!” You whispered, pinching his bicep.

He barely flinched, brushing you off, “You’re the clown guy!” Luffy turned to you briefly, “Hehe! How bout that, Clown Lady!” He chimed.

Buggy’s face screwed up in confusion, ‘She’s not a fucking clown.’ He thought. ‘If she is, she’s a shitty one. Out of costume and everything.’

“Your name’s uh-uh” Luffy trailed off already moving on.

“Buggy!” you whispered.

“Binky!”

“No!”

Buggy was unimpressed, “Buggy.” He corrected. “Buggy the Clown. Buggy, the Flashy Fool? Buggy, The Genius Jester?” Buggy offered, looking for any sign of recognition on the young captain’s face. He found none, just unabashed…well. Luffy.

“Wow!” Luffy exclaimed, he looked at your little crew with a grin, genuinely excited to meet a famous pirate. “I bet everyone in the East Blue knows who you are!”

Buggy’s eye twitched, and you took a step closer to Luffy, widening your stance, “What did you just say?”

“Just that everyone knows who you are!” Luffy said innocently. He didn’t know. He really didn’t. You didn’t even know about what was going on, and you actually knew who Buggy was.

Buggy snarled, pushing past you and the other crewmates, grabbing Luffy by the face, “NOSE?!” You stumbled but stood close, eyeing the clown pirate’s hand on your captain’s face. Your fingers twitched to deck the guy, but you had to be patient. You had to wait. Your priority was keeping Luffy safe, not pitching a fight with other pirate captains.

You saw the other circus folk step forward, a menacing threat hanging over all of you. “Are you making fun of my nose?” Buggy seethed.

“Well, I wasn’t,” Luffy started, struggling to speak through Buggy’s grip. “But now that you mention it…” Luffy’s hand rose from his side as he spoke, “Is that thing for real?”

You clenched your jaw as Buggy slapped Luffy’s hand away. “Don’t be rude, Luffy!” you hissed.

Buggy regarded you for a second, taken aback, but his attention was quickly grabbed by Luffy again as he tried to reach back toward his nose. Buggy slapped Luffy’s hand away again, “What’s real is, I’ve been scheming for MONTHS!” he exclaimed, “to steal that map from that Old Axe-Hand Moron.” Buggy emphasized the insult, swinging into Nami’s face, who regarded him coldly as he indicated for a laugh. You frowned at the mention of the Marine, displeased by the few interactions you’d had with him. Buggy shrugged at Nami’s nonresponse and backed away, “-only to find out I had been upstaged by four little nobodies! Who stole it from right under my nos-“ he cut himself off, that clearly being a sensitive subject for him. “-NO! IT’S IN MY HEAD NOW!” he yelled, groaning in frustration before marching away from your crew.

You took a deep breath as you watched him go, approaching Luffy again, resting a hand on his shoulder, trying to ground him to reality for one damned second. “Hey!” Luffy shouted, and you clamped your hold on his shoulder, nails digging into his skin. You hissed, trying to get him to shut up, but Luffy persisted as if you weren’t even there. “I’m not a nobody!” he proclaimed, a resolute tone in his voice. “I’m Monkey D. Luffy! And I will be King of the Pirates!” you tensed even further, letting go of your vice grip and biting back a lecture on time and place.

Buggy let out a weak, piteous laugh at your captain’s statement, “Oh! Now that’s funny!” he pointed at the man who was supposed to oversee the lion, who held up a LAUGH sign. The crowd followed directions hollowly, and you found yourself locking eyes with that woman again, the tears falling slowly down her cheeks. You sent her a determined nod. If you could do nothing else today, you’d protect Luffy, and get her out of here. The laughter rang for a moment, until the unamused clown gestured to stop, the tent falling to silence on a dime. “My bounty poster graces every marquee of every Marine outpost for miles.” Buggy carried on, talking up himself and his crew, but at that moment, you noticed something. Buggy had throwing knives in his coat. If you could just get your hands on one…a plan began to form in your mind on how to get one as the two pirate captains argued about who would be king.

You scanned the room when your plan was as fully formed as it would be, looking for all exits and possibilities you could. Just when you felt solid, Zoro opened his big mouth.

You could see Buggy’s rage build at the swordsman’s arrogance, a vein on his forehead popping out a bit, the tendons in his neck tight. “Now,” he muttered. “Maybe we should skip right to the finale.” Buggy raised his hand, each finger interlocking with a knife, one shoved between each knuckle. Your focus lasered in on them, barely registering the other pirates as a threat as they readied themselves for a fight.

THEN NAMI STEPPED UP. FUCKING HELL. Your brow twitched as you resisted the urge to shove her back, “Wait! Wait. What if I have something to offer you?”

You snarled, “Oh hell no.” you knew exactly what she was gonna do. And it wouldn’t work.

“Something more valuable than the map.” Luffy eyed Nami, confused as to what she could be talking about, stepping closer to her. Nami goes on to set up offering one of you as a freak, stepping around Luffy.

“Go on.” Buggy insisted, curiosity something he couldn’t seem to resist.

Nami smoothed her resolve, turning and snatching Luffy’s hat, tossing it high above you and tried to bolt. Luffy used his rubber abilities to try and grab the hat.

“Fat chance!” you yelled, sprinting after her. You made it out of the tent when she stumbled in her path, shocked by the destruction around her. You, did no such thing, tackling her around the middle. You two rolled in the dust for a moment, when you landed you had her pinned under you, straddling her, holding her arms above her head, “We die, you die. You signed up for this shit.” You hissed, leaning into her face, “Try something like that again and I might have to kill you. Only thing that could save you is that rubber boy you just tried to sell out.” Nami’s eyes were wide under you as you were quickly surrounded by circus performers, picking you two up and dragging you back to the tent.

Buggy eyed you with renewed wonder. ‘You chased down your crewmate who was…getting away? All because of this…rubber dude?’

Nami’s horrified expression hadn’t left her face, “What did you do?! What did you do to their town?! You destroyed everything!” she cried to the clown. Buggy just rolled his eyes and twirled a throwing knife in his hand. You had become used to such destruction over the years, and used that to your advantage, compartmentalizing those feelings for later and focusing on getting one of those damned knives.

“Not everything.” Buggy chided, cutting slices into an apple he had retrieved in light of Nami’s escape attempt. “I let em keep their hands.” He joked, pointing to the guy with the sign again, provoking applause from the crowd.

“Okay,” Buggy started, “Here ends the theatrics.” He said walking over to your group again, but more specifically over to you, the lights shifting with his path. His eyes landed on you, looking you up and down, trying to take you in. You met his gaze without issue, even quirking a small smirk at the man. Buggy narrowed his eyes at you before turning to your captain, “I know one of you has my map, and I’m gonna get it back.” He said, Buggy’s eyes flicking to you briefly. “What was it you said, rubber boy? That it was in a safe place?” All of your eyes shot wide. Amendment to the plan. You were going to be grabbed. You have the map now. At least they’ll think you do. You have to help Luffy. “Don’t act so surprised. I’ve got eyes and ears everywhere.”

You shared a look with Luffy ‘Go with it.’ You tried to telepathically communicate with the boy, “So please make our guests uncomfortable in the Greenroom!” He said, motioning for the circus pirates to descend onto you, trying to drag you into the back. You immediately held your arms over your torso, pretending to have the map under your shirt, he doesn’t know it’s in a damned cannister, writhing to keep your hands in place. ‘Please think I’m stupid enough to do that.’ You prayed, meeting Buggy’s eyes for a moment.

His eyes narrowed, “Leave her.” Buggy called, pointing right at you. You struggled less, darting your eyes around, ‘panicked’ you and Luffy were left in the circus tent while Nami and Zoro were dragged into the dark of the backstage. You two were ushered forward, inches away from Buggy. “I am going to have a little chat. With my stretchy new pal, here.” He said, eyes flicking to you, “But first, I’m, gonna need to talk to this pretty little Doll Face right here.” His gaze bore into you as he flicked his head to the side, the crew grabbing Luffy and dragging him one way, Buggy guiding you in another. “Let’s chat, babe.” He rasps into your ear.

‘Please let this work.’

“Come ON, Doll Face!” Buggy whined, the two of you in one of the off shoot store rooms. He had stuck you both into a large cage, not lion big, but big enough. “Work with me here! I mean, what are you even doing with a bunch of snot nosed little babies, huh?” he asked, plopping to the ground in front of you. You sat across from him, your arms crossed over the area you were pretending to keep the map.

You gave the clown another grin, “Why? Jealous?”

Buggy’s brows knit in confusion, “Huh? Why’d I be jealous?” genuine perplexed questioning all over his face as he began fiddling with one of those throwing knives you were so ready to get your hands on.

“Because he’ll do it.” You said frankly, checking your nails, frowning at a break.

“Do what?” Buggy challenged, holding the knife level with you.

You simply hummed into your smile, making it grow, “He’s gonna find the One Piece and become King.” You said, speaking like you were talking about the weather. “I see it in him every day.” You locked eyes with Buggy’s annoyed gaze. “I swear sometimes he might be the reincarnation of Roger himself.” You barreled forward, riling Buggy up, “I haven’t heard of a pirate like him since Joy Boy!”

Buggy was almost growling, “Don’t you talk to me about Gol D. Roger.” He hissed, fingers twitching around the knife’s hilt. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

You shrugged; arms still wrapped firmly around yourself. “How would you know?” you lilted, leaning forwards into the clown’s space. “You don’t know anything about me, Buggy.” You said, emphasizing his name. “You don’t even know who I am.” You giggle, cocking your head to the side, looking the seething clown up and down.

Buggy ran his tongue along his teeth, sucking in a breath, “What’s your name then, Doll?”

You bit your lip to keep down another laugh, “I don’t know if I want to tell you, I kinda like it when you call me Doll.” Buggy was physically taken aback for a moment, his head jerking back a bit, not expecting any flirting. Your eyes softened a bit, extending out your leg to bump your foot with his. “Come on, pretty boy, don’t be so serious.” You laugh at his bewildered expression for a moment before announcing your name with a grin.

His eyes widened further, making you laugh harder, “You’re cute when you’re not trying to kill my friends.” You joked, nudging the clown’s foot again, trying to illicit a laugh or any reaction now other than the frozen, almost afraid man in front of you.

Buggy swallowed the lump in his throat, fighting off the heat rising to his face by clearing his throat, “What about when I am?” he joked, trying to get the higher ground back.

Your smile never left you as you rose to your knees, ‘It’s been long enough for Zoro and Nami to have figured something out to get us all out of here. I want to use the little time I have left to have a little fun.’ You thought to yourself, crawling over to Buggy, grabbing the bars to the cage next to his head, settling between his legs.

“Well, I thought you were kinda hot, but I’m sure you’d be even better trying to kill someone I don’t like.” You lilted, face only inches from Buggy’s.

Buggy’s eyes were blown wide again, his long lashes tempting you a bit. After a moment of sharing the same space, you raised your hand up, stroking his cheek with the back of your hand, your knuckles brushing those feather soft eyelashes. You watched as his pupils overtook his beautiful blue green irises, raising your hand further to tuck a stray strand of hair back into Buggy’s bandana. You smiled again and his whole face softened.

Buggy brought his own hand up and grabbed yours from his face, whispering “You don’t have the map, do you?” you looked to the side to avoid his eyes, feeling a bit bad for the deception, and shook your head. His fingers caught your chin, and he made you look at him, a pained look on his face. “Was all of it lies? Just sweet little things to distract me?” he asked through grit teeth, and you couldn’t help but notice a slight tremor to his grip.

Your eyes shot wide, immediately holding Buggy’s face in your palms, heart straining a bit when he wouldn’t meet your eyes. You could never be so cruel! “Hold on, now Bugs! This wasn’t even my plan, honestly,” you started, moving your head into his field of view every time he tried to dart those pretty eyes away from you, “I was just gonna stall, piss you off a bit.” You chuckled, “Anything I said in here,” you said with a soft smile, “I meant, pretty boy.” His eyes searched yours for deceit, confusion flashing over his face when he found none. “I don’t have to lie to get what I want.” Buggy felt an impossible pull closer to you, and so did you to him. Just as you were close enough to brush your nose against his-

“HAHAHA!” Luffy’s cackling rang out through the whole area. You flinched and tried to find where the sound came from, and Buggy blinked a few times, taking in your beautiful features as you searched for your captain, only realizing you were real when he felt the pressure of your fingers still on his face.

He shook himself out of it, “Duty calls, Starshine!” Buggy chuckled, grabbing you around the waist, placing you to the side. You worried your lip between your teeth as you listened to the loud sounds coming from Luffy. Buggy hummed and stood up, taking a key from his hat and letting his hand detach while you weren’t looking, letting it unlock the cage door before slipping through and closing it back up, locking it quickly.

Your eyes snapped to Buggy, standing in the cage, watching him as he walked away from you, “Buggy!” you called. The clown captain stilled, only turning his head to listen to you, “Promise me something!” you could barely see his brows furrow, his ear twitch, “Don’t kill him. Just-he’s a great kid and he deserves a shot. You don’t have to share; you can fight to find the One Piece all you want. Just-just don’t kill him.” You were even shocked yourself at the desperation in your tone. Buggy’s shoulders tensed before he straightened out, with a deep breath. You didn’t know for sure if he agreed of not, but something deep in your heart told you Luffy would be okay.

You were spinning the throwing knife on your finger, threading it through your fingers over and over as you sat and waited. You had already tried picking the lock to little success, and there weren’t enough weak points to exploit in the cage, so you sat, and you fiddled with the blade, waiting for one of your crewmates.

“Clown Lady!” you heard Zoro’s gruff call travel low through the room. You licked your lips and whistled a practiced bird call, hearing two sets of footsteps move direction and come find you in your sturdy, iron bar cage.

You leaned against the bars, waving at your crewmates, a wry smile on your lips, “I don’t know if this is the right place for that nickname.” You joked.

“Damn, what’d you do to get locked up like this?” Nami huffed, already trying to work the lock.

You shrugged, “I think he likes me,” you chuckled, to the dismay and slight disgust of the two pirates, “Maybe he wanted to keep me!”

Zoro grimaced, “You have a weird sense of humor, woman.”

You rolled your eyes, a glint in the sand catching your eye, a glint in the sand catching your eye. You beamed, pointing at the swordsman’s feet with a wide smile, “I told you he liked me! Look,” both crewmates’ eyes followed your finger to the dusty ground, “He left me a key!”

Zoro and Nami took a moment, blinking to process this information, looking at each other to confirm this was real, nodded, and then Nami grabbed the key.

“Let’s go, Luffy was running his mouth, I could hear him,” you said, rushing through the tent, you and Nami running ahead while Zoro made quick work of any circus folk you ran into.

You turned the final corner and sprinted through the hallway, coming into one of the ring entrances. Luffy was in an escapologist’s water tank full of seawater, Buggy arguing with him through the glass.

Your eyes met Luffy’s as he was fully submerged in the water tank, and you gave him a wide smile, Nami running up behind you. Luffy, ever the little shit, points behind Buggy at you two. Just as Buggy turns, Nami launches the staff she’d been holding straight at the glass with enough power to crack it.

Buggy dodges it, looking up at you two. Just when his eyes met yours, the glass broke out, all the water and Luffy himself spilling out onto the ground. And in that moment, the world paused.

He was in peril, sure, but Buggy couldn’t help but marvel at your wide smile, the grin crinkling the corners of your eyes. You tossed something in your hand, catching it again. One of Buggy’s throwing knives. Buggy felt a smirk pull at his lips, no one manages to steal his knives from him. Damn you’re impressive.

When the world resumed, he and Luffy were fighting off the effects of the sea water, and Buggy heard an absolutely awful gagging sound, eyes shifting to the rubber captain. ‘HE ATE THE FUCKING MAP?!’ Buggy almost cackled at the insanity, but one thing overpowered it all. He needed “My map-” “My hat-“ he and Luffy began to crawl, dragging themselves toward their respective treasures. When they had reached them, Buggy laughed, God could he fail upwards.

That’s when you three made your advance, you, Zoro, and Nami circling Buggy like sharks, “You want a piece of me?” Buggy called, “Let’s see what you got!”

Zoro tried to chop off Buggy’s head, but it just popped off then back on again, causing all of your faces to scowl in confusion. “Chop Chop Fruit.” You called.

“Very good, Doll Face!” Buggy exclaimed, “Surprise, Shithead!” Buggy began to separate into smaller and smaller pieces, flying around you three.

“Cutting him won’t work.” You stated, twirling the knife in your hand, thinking. Thinking of nothing good, of course, a wicked grin appearing on your face.

The flying limbs and body parts flew all around you, pushing Zoro and Nami out of the ring. You tried your best to dodge them, but you got hit back by a few before finding Buggy’s rhythm, bobbing and weaving with him. Unfortunately, he noticed, and sent a hand out to drag you to the ground, away from the others. You landed hard against a supply of chests and crates. Perfect.

Luffy rose to the challenge, invoking Buggy’s Chop Chop Cannon, and dodging expertly, pinning the clown’s torso to the ground before one of his fists came flying in from the side, toppling Luffy off of him. Luffy popped right up, only for Buggy to send a fist full of knives at his head, catching Luffy’s hat when he ducked.

‘Oh, shit.’ You thought. ‘Buggy might be fucked. What a shame. I kinda wanted to see him again.’

Luffy’s eyes were wide, panic and rage flickering through them as he tried to pick it up, only to be tripped and pinned by Buggy. Your captain met your eye, which you immediately swung open one of the chests, and he got the hint, that brilliant boy. “Nami! The crates!” he choked out.

Nami’s head whipped to where you were, ready to go, knife in hand. Luffy stood tall, ripping Buggy’s hand off of his throat and whipping it towards Nami, who batted it right at you, who slammed it into a crate, closing it tightly before prepping the next one. And so that’s how it went, the other Straw-hats sending you pitches and hits, and you making sure they found their homes in individual crates. One particularly sneaky leg tried to go back to Buggy, but you whipped your throwing knife right at it, barely nicking him, but pinning it to the ground by the pants. You grabbed it and shoved it into a chest, sitting on it with a satisfied grin. All that was left was his head, feet, and hands.

“What did you do?!” Buggy roared, outraged.

Luffy chuckled, dusting off his poor hat, “Cut you down to size!” he laughed, infuriating the clown.

Buggy sputtered and yelled, “-you’re just a sad, lonely little boy wearing another man’s hat!”

You lowered your gaze to Buggy’s, a narrow glare. “I know who I am.” Luffy started, placing his hat back on his head. You glowed with pride as he spoke, “I am Monkey D. Luffy. And I’m gonna be the King of the Pirates!” he announced, readying himself for the final blow.

You met Buggy’s eye one more time as Luffy wound up, and you sent him a quick wink and a smile.

“GUM GUM! BAZOOKA!” and with that, Luffy slingshot the clown’s remaining pieces out of the tent.

‘Wonder when I’ll see him again.’ You wondered. ‘Hope it’s soon.’

You kept your eyes on the hole in the tent as Luffy picked up the map, handing it off to Nami. You stiffened for a moment, apprehensive with her after the stunt she pulled.

“You’re trusting me with this?” Nami asked, taking the map into her hands.

“You’re the navigator.” Luffy insisted.

They shared a little moment, holding each other’s eye, a passage of understanding between them.

Zoro cut in, puffing out a quiet, “Let’s get out of this clown show.”

You smirked, “Should I take offence, Zoro?” you teased.

Zoro rolled his eyes, “Quiet, woman.” He barked, all of you heading towards an exit.

“Wait!” Luffy exclaims, and your eyes landed again on the face of the woman in the crowd. “We have one more thing to do.” You and the woman exchanged smiles.

“Hey, Luffy.” You said, sitting next to your captain on the deck of your small “ship”. The young captain was wearing the straw hat again, repaired by Nami.

He smiled up at you, watching the waves. It was just you two out there, the other two working inside. “Should I stop calling you Clown Lady?” Luffy asked, peering up at you, squinting in the evening sun.

You smiled, teeth and all, stroking the young boy’s nape, “You don’t have to.” You start, poking his cheek with your free hand, “I don’t mind being Clown Lady. Especially not for you, Captain.”

Luffy sat up and his eyes got that sparkle, he had an idea. “Maybe that’s what you could do! Be a clown!” he volunteered, gesturing wildly with his words, your shoulders shaking in laughter. “Clowns do all kinds of stuff! You could do all the stuff you wanna do!”

“I could also…just do them and not be a clown.” You chide, pinching his side, “Besides, you don’t have to worry about me and my silly dreams. Okay, Luffy? Focus on yours. You might actually achieve yours.” You say, taking the boy into a side hug, his head under your cheek.

You could feel him scowl under you, “You’ll achieve your dream,” Luffy said, using your government name to prove his point.

You barked out a laugh, “That might’ve been the first time you said my name!” Luffy shrugged and chuckled, wrapping an arm around you too, a comfortable silence filling the deck, the only sound was the sounds of the sea, calm and cool. You took a moment to look at Luffy, specifically that hat. That hat niggled at the back of your skull like a song you couldn’t remember the name of, why was it so familiar? “Say, Luffy.” He hummed in acknowledgment, “Where’d you get this hat from?”

Luffy smiled wide and began telling tale of the Red-Haired Shanks, a man he looked up to in every way, who took care of him. As he spoke you couldn’t help the feeling of familiarity grow stronger. “Luffy.” You stopped him suddenly, craning your neck to look the boy in the eyes. “Did this Shanks guy ever tell you about a girl he met when he was young?”

Luffy shrugged noncommittally, “He talked about a lot of girls.”

You pursed your lips trying to place your words, “What about a girl who beat him in a fist fight when they first met?” you asked with a chuckle.

Luffy sat up suddenly, straight as a board. “Was that you?” he asked, wide eyed.

You shrugged, “I think so. Remember those boys I told you about?” Luffy nodded eagerly, “I’m starting to think one of them was your Red-Haired Shanks.”

Buggy froze where he was being held by Arlong’s pirates, the itchy bag rubbing against his sensitive nose.

‘Remember those boys I told you about?’

‘I swear sometimes he might be the reincarnation of Roger himself.’

‘What about a girl who beat him in a fist fight when they first met?’

The knife.

It all made sense. It was you. The girl. Right before it all went to shit, when Roger was still around. The first girl he had a crush on, the girl he promised to see again. It’s you.

“Well, I didn’t know their names!” you exclaimed to an incredulous Luffy. “They called me Gale. Like Nightingale, one was Cardinal, and the other was Peacock! We thought we wouldn’t miss each other as much after they left if we didn’t know names. Didn’t work, but it’s what we thought.”

“Why didn’t you go with them if you liked them so much?”

You sighed, taking a pause before speaking. Buggy straightened up a bit. “I wanted to. I always liked being a pirate and everything. I just…I had-still have responsibilities. I have my duties; I must serve my family.” Lame excuse, if you ask Buggy, but what can you do?

‘I…think one of them was your Red-Haired Shanks.’

And of course, you remembered Shanks, not him.

[mooshs-crack-headcanons]

Here you go, you all knew it was coming.

And no, this is not just because of me on record being a huge fucking simp for him.

In defense of Shanks given chapter 1044:

Since english translation is out I'm going to talk about it. Spoilers below:

I don't think he's a rat or at least in the way twitter is framing him out to be.

I don't believe in the "Shanks was actually evil this entire time" theory either, Oda has made some pretty stupid writing decisions before but I refuse to believe he would actually do something as predictable and stupid like that until I see it.

The most I see him being IF we're going down this road is him being an antagonist and not a villain; think of Buggy who was the main antagonist in his own introductory arc then kind of chilled out and was an ally once Impel down/marineford happened vs someone like Doflamingo who given every single one of his interactions he's had in the story just kind of proves himself that he's a villain and he has no interest of changing not when he can have all of this power he thinks is his birthright and his birthright was wrongly taken from him and he wants the entire world to burn for it.

Now, we know basically only tiny scraps of information about Shanks. Now while this point can be used on both sides of the argument I'm going to use what Oda has made a point to show about him in my defense - that being Shanks has been shown to be very thoughtful, reasonable, and that the fucker is always planning and thinking about the future. He has motives, which granted we don’t know much about, in almost every single serious interactions we see him in and because it's Oda we're not getting a full entire picture leaving us to speculate but I think there's an Oda twist in here somewhere where at a base level things don't appear as they seem (think of the whole Oden dancing in the streets thing) but I don't think the twist here is going to be, again, something very predictable and in my opinion cheap as the "Shanks was evil the entire time" thing, personally I think it's going to be more interesting and unexpected than that, like maybe build up for the whole Shanks is Rocks' son theory which maybe deserves it's own post 👉👈

But anyway, break down time on each point twitter is throwing a hissy fit over:

I really don't think if he told the Grousei where Luffy is so they could send cp0 out to kill him he wouldn't said this shortly before he set off to see the Grousei, alone on a beach, just reading the newspaper, if he just thought Luffy would be easily taken out by CP0:

I mean come on the same newspaper article was saying how's he's a "fith emporer" even if he did tell the Grousei where he was I think there's an entirely different motive behind it at least in his eyes that he's still very sure that he and Luffy will see each other again.

Do I think he knew the true nature of Luffy's fruit at the very start? Yes. Do I think "Oh he just wanted for himself to become joyboy to make Roger proud" like some people on twitter are saying? Absolutely fucking not. This fruit, Joyboy, in the world government's eyes is absolutely fucking dangerous to them and their hold on power and the fact THEY had it makes it even more dangerous because they can just give it to Im and have them who is just living in the shadows of Pangaea Castle, the person that most likely only the grousei know about - and that's it the fruit never to be seen again unless I'm eats it and who knows what would happen next but surely nothing good but reassuring the world government's power. However, does Shanks know about Im? We don't know but still I think even if he doesn't and he knows about that fruit he can simply put two and two together that if the world government gets their hands on it that could be really really really bad and therefore he that's why he steals it.

But why the gum gum fruit thing? Simple, the grousei wants no one besides themselves to know about Joyboy so why not twist the truth of the fruit and call it the gum gum fruit so the marines/cipher pol who they hire to find it thinks nothing of it and just "Oh its just rubber powers? Ok, weird but let's go find it I guess?" and safely securing the fruit that way so no one "wants it" and so Joyboy's name can be completely erased.

How does Shanks know about it? He traveled on Roger's crew and even if he and Buggy didn't go to laughtale I still think it's perfectly reasonable for him to learn about Joyboy somehow after Roger's death, I mean Kaido knows about it, and again there's a really big blank periods with Shanks so perfect flashback material.

But why didn't he tell Luffy at the start? Luffy, who was 7, a child who wanted to become a pirate just like him, just ate the most dangerous fruit to the government's eyes - the fucking Nika fruit and expect him just to drop everything and tell him, a 7 year old, how the government is going to want him more than dead because a fruit he accidentally ate because he was hungry and crush his dreams? Nah, just tell him the lie and let him figure out on his own he'll get stronger that way. And I mean with how blunt Luffy is and how he declares who he is and what devil fruit he has I mean... it sort of helped out in the end because I'm very sure the grousei would have been much alert to the fact way sooner if he was declaring every fight he had the model Nika fruit every fight instead of the rubber fruit.

So what was Shanks' intention with his meeting with the Grousei? I still 100% the pirate Shanks went to talk about is still Blackbeard, it makes sense, even if the other two Yonko are allied with one another the two yonko in question are Kaido and Big Mom, even if they destroy the government like planned when it comes to the one piece there is absolutely no way they would ever share and even if they could get to that point, it's Kaido and Big Mom they would absolutely destroy one another over one small disagreement and that leaves of the balance then just; the world government, the warlords, and two emperor's: Shanks and Teach and it seems that Shanks is the only one that's not underestimating Blackbeard, because Teach too is a crafty planning individual and you know the moment Kaido and Big Mom fall he's going to use the fact there's two empty places of the Yonko to his advantage and act just as the world goes into hysterics over their defeat. He did it at marineford and he can easily do it again given the opportunity and that opportunity is soon coming. I fully believe the Red Haired pirates are definitely one of the strongest pirate crews, even with their small size and I'm pretty sure (as of right now that Oda has made clear and I really hope it stays this way) not a single member of his crew has a devil fruit and yet they've reached Yonko crew status - if you really think about it in comparison to the other big heavy hitting crews that's fucking insane, and it proves Shanks picks quality of quantity and it fucking works. However. This. Still. Isn't. Enough.

So here's my guess/prediction of how that Grousei meeting came to be/how it turned out:

Shanks needs allies if he even wants a chance to stand against Blackbeard given how the payback war turned out for the remains of the Whitebeard crew, which I'd like to think at the time he offered his full support to help fight in but Marco and the rest of the Whitebeard crew probably declined with something lines of: "This is a family matter." and he let them go on their own against him that time, but now things are different since at the time of the payback war Teach wasn't a Yonko just yet (I think?) and now he is and he's been relatively quiet ever since the beginning of the timeskip and that's concerning especially with this whole thing with Big Mom and Kaido kicking up. However, right now Shanks finds himself in a corner when it comes to allies - the Whitebeard crew retired and spread out, the other two Yonko are batshit and are currently fighting each other and even if they weren't Shanks clashed with Kaido before Marineford and it's implied he either won or convinced him to turn back and Big Mom... is Big Mom. Highly doubt either of them would help him out or even take Blackbeard seriously. How else does he has? Maybe reinforcements from his territory islands? Who else? I highly doubt Luffy because I don't think he'd call for Luffy to help him because he doesn't want to drag Luffy out of his own thing, especially now given Luffy's basically a phantom fith emporer that's now getting involved in both Kaido and Big Mom's business? Mihawk? Mihawk's dealing with the abolishment of the warlord system and has marines ships he has to cut up so he's unavailable? Who else?

The government.

With the marines and the cipher pol and all the shit they have just to pull a buster call is an official just as much steps in shit on island he doesn't like, the government xld very well be the last and only chance to actually fight against all the crazy shit Blackbeard has. Does Shanks like the government? No probably not, he is a pirate - an emporer at that - and out of anyone I'm pretty sure he sees its corruption and all but I think he still recognizes its power (why it's so dangerous teamed up with its corruption) but that power can be very useful in this situation where he feels need to go talk to the Grousei himself most likely with agreed he bring no weapons but given he being the most reasonable out of the Yonko is why the Grousei let him up to talk to them.

Now, if he told them everything - Luffy having the Nika fruit and his where his current location is: on wano, is it possible that maybe this could be sort of a way trade? Shanks giving Luffy's information in exchange for the Grousei sending marines, most likely the admiral, after Teach? Shanks, again very sure of himself that he'd see Luffy again soon, giving the information to the government because Luffy's already way proved his skills in order to challenge the Yonko that even if the government sends their cipher pol goons after him that they're going to be no match for him, afterall Luffy's true challenges now is knocking the Yonko themselves off their feet, yes and that even includes Shanks himself, but I really don't think he minds that much and what will make Shanks' fight differentiate from the others is the intention of it; like a challenge to be steel edge in proof of how far Luffy has come since their days together in Fuisha.

No this all is just my prediction of how Oda is approaching this but if he does it's up to him if the Grousei (more like Im's choice) take up their end of the deal or not but it's clear they've used Shanks word to their advantage to target where Luffy is now... but I highly doubt their going to get farther than that.

Now, everything I've said in this post could be wrong and that would be okay. Again, the most I see Shanks being is an antagonist and for reasons we just haven't been clued in about because Oda hasn't given that much information about him yet, given his entire role in the story since the beginning with that promise that Luffy will return that hat when he has become a great pirate - something clearly speaking for the end of the story, and personally I don't even think then he's going to accept the hat back given the whole theme of inherited will and all, meaning he's probably going to want Luffy to keep it so he can pass it along to the next generation and so on.

Oh and just the idea of evil Shanks is fucking, AGAIN, predictable as some shit you'd predictable in the early chapters of "Look at him come back and be evil and entirely different than how Luffy remembered him." is just fucking stupid and cheap and wouldn't match up with what Oda has shown and if he does go down this road I'm sure me and a lot of fans, especially EARLY EARLY fans here from the very beginning would be very disappointed with that outcome and I really hope this isn't the case and Oda can make that wait all the more interesting and worth it.

Tldr: It's okay to speculate, it's what I've been doing this entire post. But quit spreading your automatic dramatic assumptions and your "I knew he was going to be evil this whole time." bullshit about a character with as much of importance as Shanks out of here when it's fucking Oda writing the story. Just wait until he himself addresses the whole thing again with further context and hold your tongue with that or you'll risk the chance of just looking stupid.

But I've said it in a previous thirst post: I'm a ride or die for this red haired idiot no matter what so ✌😅✌ we'll have to see where this goes.

[missallsundaes]

Can I have angst where Shanks is dating someone who Buggy is in love with and he's always been jealous of shanks anyway so it just hurts more? Modern au or when they were teenagers on Rodgers crew? Maybe he confesses his feelings for them and they said they had liked him once but Shanks made a move first. Thank you x

This ended up a lot more like... One sided Buggy x Reader who is dating Shanks? So I hoped that's what you meant in your request.

I really enjoyed writing this. I feel that way every time I write Buggy I think. Hes just such a fun character with a lot of angey.

This kind of takes place between being on Rogers Crew and setting off on their own. Sort of an au but not a far stretch. Probably late teens or early 20s in this fic, hope that's okay.

Ended up being like 930 words oof longer than I meant haha

“I would have loved too, but... Shanks asked me out this morning.. Sorry Bugs.” Your words repeated in his mind like a broken record, making him angrier and angrier as he sought after the red haired teen, looking in all his regular hang outs before finding him, laughing with a couple of friends at the beach. Didn't he just look so fucking smug? Didn't he just always get his way and everything he wanted?

“Haven't you taken enough from me?” Buggy shouted, catching the attention of Shanks and his friends.

Shanks smiled and waved, clearly ignoring whatever Buggy was yelling about this time, “Hey Buggy what's going on?”

“You fucking know what's going on you shit,” Buggy cursed, jot slowing his pace until he was eye to eye with the red haired man. “No matter how kind you are to everyone else, Buggy’s always the ass of the joke, yeah?” His face was red with anger and hands balled into fists, ready to strike Shanks where he stood.

“What are you going on about?” Shanks said with a laugh, catching Buggy’s fist before it made contact with his chin, holding the clowns arm by the wrist.

“You know I love them!” He shouted, pulling his hand from Shanks and trying to punch again, this time with the other hand, only for it to be caught a second time. “You fucking KNEW. You don't even love them!” He spat. He didn’t know if that was true or not but just the idea of you in Shanks’ arms made his blood boil.

His friends on the beach began to laugh, enraging Buggy more, kicking one of them in the stomach after detaching the leg from his hip. Shanks’ soft face became more serious. “Don't involve them, this isn't their fight. I don't understand why it's a fight in the first place, Buggy. You waited 3 years to tell them and you think I was just going to wait around for you to grow the balls to admit it?”

His words were harsher than usual and the recent sting of the rejection from you had made them hurt more. “I was waiting for the right time..”

“You had plenty of time to find that time, Buggy. I'm in love with them too,” Shanks said, letting go of Buggy’s wrists now and letting them drop to his sides. “They're not a piece of treasure for you to claim. They get a say in this too. They just chose me.”

Every time he saw you with Shanks in town his blood boiled and he thought of that night. He was still in love with you. Still dying to be in Shanks’ position. It wasn't like he was stalking you. The town was just small and there were only so many places to go out, plus he recognised your voice so easily in a crowd. Your laughter over anyone else's. Your smile could catch his eye in the sun from across the bar.

Tonight was different. You weren't with Shanks when he saw you. Probably waiting for a date to begin, or maybe having a drink alone tonight? In any case he wouldn't let another moment slip away. He hadn't been alone with you in the months that you had been dating Shanks.

“Bugs!!!” You cheered, waving him over before he could even make the move near you at the bar, perched on the stool with a drink in hand, cheeks already flushed from drink. The corner of his lip curled in a smile, a genuine smile that was hard to get out of him.

He sat on the stool next to you and waved the bartender over for a drink of his own. “It feels like it's been forever.. Too long.” He actually couldn't remember speaking with you since the heartbreak that was his confession, and he felt a tinge of pain at the memory of it, especially because of how much love he still felt for you. Especially with you so close that he could smell your fragrance, hear your laugh up close, see that smile that dazzled him.

“I just miss you Bugs,” you said sadly. Maybe it was the drink going to your head but you couldn't keep it in any longer, “Buggy, I do love you. You need to know that. It's just that.. I've always felt fondly of Shanks as well, and he confessed to me the same day. But I miss you so much. I miss your jokes and your little outbursts. I miss playing with your hair,” you continued, reaching out a hand to take a blue lock between your fingers, pulling him closer to you. You kissed his nose, “I miss you. I love you.”

He was flushed and torn between being overjoyed because you missed him too! You loved him too! And the utter heartbreak because he knew the ‘but…’ was coming.

“But I still love Shanks too, Bugs.” You looked down into your drink, swirling the straw between your fingers idly. “I wish you had told me before.” That was the arrow through his heart, the blow that really hit him.

“What if I just kill him?” He joked, knowing what your answer would be even as he said it.

You cupped his cheek in your hand and brought his face to yours, kissing his lips softly. You felt him melt into you, kissing you back before you pulled away. “I'm sorry, Buggy.” You said sadly, dropping a few beri on the counter to pay for your drinks before standing up and heading out the door.

[enginire]

there's a nod that curls in on itself, tightly wound in its cocoon of blankets and thick thermals. (this world is not cut out for a woman like herself — too cold, too dark, too stuck with the drift of snow and ice that settles itself deep in her bones. she shudders then, when the heat of the pack begins to spread itself down the back of her spine and grabs hold of her from one side or another — the cold has become the norm, has become the everlasting friend in the dark that shifts out from behind her palms. she spends her time mumbling into the tinfoil coverage of the sleeping bag, or juddering out into the cold keyboard of the dataset before her. the science is true: the earth is warming — somewhere out there, high above human civilisation, it's warming, but that's... too far away from the usual to be significant right now.)

she gulps down another squeeze of nutrients (because that's what it is, right? nutrients? — sugar, salt, electrolytes suspended in gelatin that keep her sustaining from day one to day thirty eight — this is new. this is all new. the tangible form of audrey pressing a deep curve into the cot is a development that she'd never imagined, half-dead and fifty degrees below body temp.)

"they left me." snowpiercer is a dead dream in the ice — a few hundred miles away by now, she imagines, and too far to hope for. by the time they come back again, if they come back again, it'll be too late, too far, too lost in time to recover from it. (she thinks she can probably see her ribs — snowpiercer had not been a gluttonous era. she'd only taken what she'd needed, from sushi to the odd tipple in the night car. she misses audrey to no end. — this doesn't count, does it? a hallucination, marked by the period at the end of the sentence. she survives only in the now, and loops the o to the W like a wilford fucking insignia.)

"why don't you feel the cold?" it doesn't click — the headwoods have killed the nerves in one of her shoulders, that much she knows. it doesn't feel half as cold as the rest of her, and the few times she's managed to reach back and press, there's been nothing but numbness eking out of the dead wound.)

"what did you bring? we should ration. no more energy packs until we do." and that's a hard, firm demand. she won't drink until they know what's left. she won't breathe until there's a plan in place. two souls are harder to save than one, and one is sitting at the end of the line with bags packed into the nearest maintenance buggy as it is. (there's a way out here — one shrouded in the cold and mist of a scathing atmosphere. it's there, but far away. it's there, but two days of calories and kilojoules that she's not sure she wants to use just yet.)

"m' warmer — it's warmer if you get close."

determination makes up what education she doesn't have. spending hours as the headwoods's lab rat doesn't make her able to gauge what the cold had done to her, and what isolation had made worse. her urging succeeded in getting some of the pouch into her, to her relief, as cold turned melanie into something distant — someone not all there, after loneliness and what she assumed to be hunger. she was piecing together each of her comments, of where she would've gotten the food brought with her from the train. reality must have been out of grasp, and she would return her to it.

the truth was that her association to alex had been peripheral for the last days, kept apart by intention as wilford prepared to leave melanie behind. losing a mother once was enough, losing her for good was a reality no one should have had to face. audrey knew it twice over, and even without knowing, could imagine how that felt. "alive and well, but she needs you back on that train. we all do." no matter what, they all did — few were more necessary to operations than her.

selfishness existed too, to have her back, to see her well again, despite knowing that she had shifted in mind. the cold had made her something different, someone distant, and she wasn't certain a return to earlier warmth was possible. ( little left on her is smooth, now. her voice, all but gone. the girlfriend melanie knew, lost in part to pain. ) her fingers squeeze the packet, coaxing more into melanie to return her to health. anything, to get there.

"i'll be fine. you'll need to finish the rest soon." need, non negotiable.

her eyes didn't leave her now, unwilling to focus elsewhere. if this was their last few days, or hours, she wanted to remember. "no. i'm different now, i don't feel the cold like i used to. do you feel warmer?"

[adifferenttime]

Andrew Ryan vs. Robert House

On almost every House post I make, someone in the notes will reliably reference Andrew Ryan. I totally get it - they look similar, they're based on the same guy, the parallels are so clear that the NV dev team added an achievement for killing House with a golf club - but I think these commonalities tend to engulf both characters, blotting out some of their more interesting ideological/personal differences. It's useful to examine them in relation to one another, but part of that is figuring out what distinguishes them, which is just what I’ve attempted to do.

It's difficult for me to talk about Randian objectivism because I don't think it's sound enough to address on its own terms, but considering this is the philosophy Andrew Ryan has adopted, I kind of have to. What I’d identify as the core premise of Randian ethics is this: altruism is a moral wrong. Some Randians have argued that isn't really what they believe - that the real point is anything resembling altruism is self-interest in disguise - but they're departing from the beliefs of their icon when they make those claims. Per Rand:

The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute is self-sacrifice – which means self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction – which means the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good.

The way Rand defines altruism is by linking it to self-sacrifice, which she uses to differentiate it from kindness or benevolence. Aiding others at no cost to yourself is benevolent, but not altruistic, and therefore not evil. Sacrificing your happiness to help another human being is, from Rand's perspective, evil, as is any philosophy that prioritizes the other at the cost of the self. This whole idea has been broadly rejected by most scholars on account of it being really fucking stupid. What justifies the leap from "man is naturally selfish" to "selfishness is good"? If selfishness is moral, wouldn't the most moral behavior be to exploit others through whatever means necessary, favoring force over the market? Rand defines happiness as "using your mind’s fullest power," achievable only when you "do not consider the pleasure of others as the goal," but why is this the only definition? What if your only options are self-sacrificial in nature? How do you weigh them if neither sacrifice is linked to values, individual achievement, or "your mind's fullest power" at all? Rand didn't care because she was too busy trying to ethically justify cheating on her man with her best friend's husband, but nonetheless, this is the philosophy Andrew Ryan’s adopted. He claims that "Altruism is the root of all Wickedness," in what's almost a direct quote from Rand herself.

To that end, Ryan builds a system that doesn’t just accept selfishness but actively incentivizes it. Every other principle he expresses is subservient to the ideas that selfishness rules man, and that for Ryan to act on his own selfish impulses is the highest good in the world. His lesser political principles (individual liberties, negative rights, the creation of a stateless society) don’t matter to him as much as the central precept from which they stem: that selfishness is his moral imperative.

What is the greatest lie every created? What is the most vicious obscenity ever perpetrated on mankind? Slavery? The Holocaust? Dictatorship? No. It's the tool with which all that wickedness is built: altruism.

It doesn't come as a particular surprise to me when he starts imprisoning dissidents or executing rivals or banning theft (standard practice in most societies, but not what an egoist would pursue; if you can get away with taking it, you deserve to have it, or so the thinking goes). I’ve seen him described as a hypocrite, but I don’t think that’s necessarily true considering everything he does is in line with his opposition to altruism. He'll adhere to his other principles only if they don’t sabotage his pursuit of personal power. This is evident in the fact that he only adopts a negative perception of Fontaine when his own interests are threatened, but doesn’t give two shits what Fontaine might be doing to sow conflict and harm people before that point. A guy named Gregory asks Ryan to step in against Fontaine early on before Fontaine's fully established himself as a threat to Ryan's power, and Ryan's extremely blase about it.

Don't expect me to punish citizens for showing a little initiative. If you don't like what Fontaine is doing, well, I suggest you find a way to offer a better product.

Contrast this with how he reacts when Fontaine has risen as a genuine business rival. This is from the log titled "Fontaine Must Go."

Something must be done about Fontaine. While I was buying buildings and fish futures, he was cornering the market on genotypes and nucleotide sequences. Rapture is transforming before my eyes. The Great Chain is pulling away from me.

This double standard is the natural outgrowth of his prioritization of self-interest. If your most deeply-held belief is that you should never give up your interests for others, ancillary rules become flexible in times of personal crisis, and Bioshock makes the case that putting someone like that in charge of a city will leave you with a crumbling, monstrous ruin.

Superficially, House has some similarities. Ryan executes political rivals; House has you blow up a bunker of his ideological opponents. Ryan is the highest authority in Rapture; House is the absolute monarch of Vegas. Their goals and moral codes, though, are almost diametrically opposed. When you ask House why you’re expected to trust him when he’s openly admitting to installing himself as the despot of the New Vegas Strip, he says this:

I have no interest in abusing others... Nor have I any interest in being worshipped as some kind of machine-god messiah. I am impervious to such corrupting ambitions.

Most of his resources are devoted to large-scale, impersonal projects, aimed either at building the power of Vegas or securing his long term goal of “progress” as he sees it. He’s rejected selfishness as a moral good because House is very far from Randian objectivism. He's a Hobbesian monarch.

In that respect, he shares an outlook on human nature with Ryan that I deeply disagree with (that human beings are essentially selfish), but in terms of what that means for the structure of a utopian society, House takes a very different position. From his perspective, human nature breeds suffering, not industriousness, and the only way to stamp out conflict - and, in a post-nuclear age, ensure the continued survival of the human race - is through a strong sovereign. The purpose of a state as laid out in Leviathan aligns very, very closely with the one House expresses.

...the foresight of their own preservation, and of a more contented life thereby; that is to say, of getting themselves out from that miserable condition of war which is necessarily consequent, as hath been shown, to the natural passions of men...

The monarch's successes are reflected in his society and the well-being of humanity as a whole. To subvert his goals is to subvert society's goals, and to doom humanity to the war, death, and suffering that exist in a state of nature. When you destroy his Securitrons/kill him, he doesn't plead for himself or get offended on his own behalf. He accuses you of betraying not him, but mankind.

Single-handedly, you've brought mankind's best hopes of forward progress crashing down. No punishment would be too severe. Fool... to let... personalities... derail future... of mankind? ...Stupid! Slavery... the future of... mankind? What... have you... done?

An important corollary of this idea which again distinguishes House from Ryan appears in Leviathan’s description of the political/moral responsibility of a monarch to his subjects:

...that great Leviathan, or rather, to speak more reverently, of that mortal god to which we owe, under the immortal God, our peace and defence. For by this authority... he hath the use of so much power that, by terror thereof, he is enabled to form the wills of them all, to peace at home, and mutual aid against their enemies abroad.

Hobbes and House give the monarch virtually unlimited power but match it to the monarch's duty, which he lives to fulfill. His obligation is to speak for the people, act for them, and protect them from all threats, internal and external. House generally abides by this, orienting his decisions around his goals for society irrespective of the personal cost (the negative consequences of his actions are a product of his fucked evaluations of what’s best for society, not personal greed). It’s not just a departure from Ryan’s philosophy but a complete refutation of it. He's almost died for what he's misidentified as the greatest good.

Given that I had to make do with buggy software, the outcome could have been worse. I nearly died as it was…. I spent the next few decades in a veritable coma.

This is not the behavior of an egoist. This is the behavior of an extremely arrogant but marginally altruistic (from a Randian perspective lmao) guy. This is some distorted “from each according to his ability” shit if you’ve managed to convince yourself your abilities exceed those of everyone else who has ever lived and that you can get the Mandate of Heaven by being really good at statistics.

The reason these guys develop such similar structures and hierarchies despite the ideological gulfs between them is because both of them are elitists who’ve experienced a massive failure of self-consciousness. They’re unable to conceive of other people as being fundamentally like them. Ryan separates people into the clearly-delineated classes of “producer” and “parasite,” ignoring the fact that everything he’s ever “produced” was reliant on a huge, coordinated effort between workers, architects, accountants, middlemen, and others, all of whom, in conjunction, contributed more to the realization of his dreams that he ever could have alone. Rather than realizing his own position is more parasitic and reliant on other people’s labor than that of anyone else in Rapture, he adheres to his doctrine of selfishness even when it’s not reflective of reality and is ruining the the lives of an entire city of people. He deludes himself into believing he’s a superman among ants instead of one flawed man who is reliant on the goodwill of others to help him survive, as are we all.

House, too, thinks he’s exceptional. Unlike Ryan, he acknowledges the necessity of the worker to a functioning society, but while he’ll accept his reliance on that labor, he doesn’t trust the laborer enough to share political power. House knows he’s invested in humanity’s survival and the creation of a better world, but he refuses to consider that he might not be alone in this goal. He chalks up the existence of the Legion to fanaticism/the ambitions of a sultanistic dictator and attributes everything the NCR has done to greed, without it ever occurring to him that the massive harm these nations have done was partially motivated by the same goals he’s devoted himself to - and that the atrocities he’s committed since his rise to power are, in some respects, very similar. House knows himself to be invested in the well-being of humanity, but he’s too arrogant to ask himself if his methods are wrong or trust other people to build a new path, one that doesn’t necessitate his complete control over the land and people of the Mojave. Ryan and House’s worldviews are distinct, and their flaws, as highlighted by their respective narratives, say some interesting things about how each set of devs view power and the pitfalls of elitism.

Anyway. If you put these two men in a room, they would probably try to murder each other, and I think that’s great.

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

The Voyage So Far: Wano (Part Two)

east blue (1 | 2) || alabasta (1 | 2) || skypiea || water 7 || enies lobby || thriller bark || paramount war (1 | 2) || fishman island || punk hazard || dressrosa (1 | 2) || whole cake island || wano (1 | 2)

okay so the wano flashback is possibly my favorite in the whole series for a whole bunch of different reasons, and oden as a character is a big part of why. honestly, i think he’s great. he’s wildly entertaining and ridiculously likable, just like a folk hero should be.

i care about oden and the akazaya nine a lot. they have one of my favorite found family dynamics in the whole series, up there with the strawhats themselves- a bunch of thugs and castoffs who wound up gathering around this one wildly charismatic moron and deciding to be stronger and better for him. 

i think they really feel like a family, in these little moments we get of them just interacting and messing around, and it only makes later events- oden’s death, the twenty-year separation, kanjurou’s betrayal- hurt all the worse.

on god it is the funniest thing on earth to me that this is how oden and izou wound up on whitebeard’s ship. 

the roger pirates!! i really really like the roger pirates!! i love that there’s this entire predecessor crew who are both absolutely fucking fascinating from a lore perspective and who are just all individually really good characters with really fun relationships. the dynamics we get to see just in this brief part of the flashback are absolutely delightful. i think the fact that i would read a whole series just about the roger pirates is a testament to oda’s character writing. 

there’s a specific sort of tragedy to the roger pirates, and i think it really hits home in their last few pages in this flashback. by all appearances, they were a crew just as close-knit as the strawhats are. they cared about each other a lot- that ship was their home.

and then their captain died, and they just- fell apart. 

awhile back, in my sabaody post, i talked about how we get to know roger first as a story and then as a character by getting to meet characters who knew him personally. to the rest of the world, roger is a story, a name to curse or a height to aspire to. but for shanks and rayleigh and crocus and buggy and all the rest of the roger pirates, he was their captain. 

the whole wano flashback, possibly more than any of the others in the series, really feels to me like a story being told, a folk tale being passed down, which makes sense, since it’s canonically framed as oden’s diary entries. and i think that framing device just adds so much to the atmosphere of this entire section of story, the feeling of myth and legend to it. 

i honestly really like how oden’s death is handled. i have trouble articulating it, but it’s so much, so over the top, so heavily set up and foreshadowed- a legendary death for a legendary man, if that makes sense.

toki’s prophecy is one of my favorite motifs in this whole arc. wano is all about a country that’s been trapped and dying for years and years, holding out desperate hope for salvation. toki is the one who gave them that hope. she doesn’t try to tell them that everything will be okay, she says it will be dark and the darkness will be long, but the dawn will come, and even though she gave her life to do that, she did it smiling. 

without toki, the wano arc never would have happened, because there would be no future to fight for. 

this panel is the header on my favorite op discord server and sometimes i just scroll up and stare at it. it’s so good. 

this entire sequence, starting from luffy law and kidd’s entrance, is probably my favorite in wano arc. it’s the turning of the sides, the daybreak after the darkest hour- these three show up, and then jinbe, and denjirou reveals his true colors and it’s revealed all the rest of the samurai left before orochi blew the bridges, and it turns out they haven’t lost a single step to kanjurou’s treachery. it just feels so good to read, after the prior hopelessness of the akazaya and the tragedy of the flashback.

i really like how the akazaya nine are absolutely ready to roast each other at any and all times. that’s how you know they’re best friends. 

i think i mentioned it back in fishman island, but one of my favorite things is the strawhats just being absolutely cheerfully, chaotically destructive. every time we get to see them wreck havoc while nonchalantly bickering with each other it puts a huge smile on my face.

i think ulti and page one are very very funny and i like their dynamic a lot, it’s a laugh riot. i also like that oda lets luffy seriously fight a woman here!! i’m serious, we don’t see enough no-holds-barred fights between men and women (conventionally attractive women, specifically) in this series, so i’m pleasantly surprised when it does happen. 

i do appreciate wano’s ability to continuously raise the “holy shit!” quotient without it ever really feeling like a twist just for the sake of the audience. like, i don’t know that anybody saw kaidou killing orochi coming, but at the same time, it feels like it does make sense, given what we know about kaidou, for him to do this.

my heart goes out to momo, honestly. he’s only eight, and in that time he’s lost his home and family and his whole world when he was thrown twenty years into the future, and he has the weight of his whole country resting on his shoulders. he’s borne up admirably under that stress, starting from zou and building up to this point.

i LOVE kin’emon’s speech to kaidou about luffy SO much. kin’emon’s come a long way from being a mostly comedy relief character in punk hazard to here, where he’s shouting down an emperor. i really like this progression- kin’emon doesn’t change, exactly, but the side of his character that is revealed in wano is very likable and admirable. it goes back to something i’ve mentioned before, about how one piece’s characters are very rarely one-dimensional.

kaidou’s dragon form is extremely cool, and so are most of the panels where it appears- it’s extremely striking, especially in panels like this, where he’s silhouetted against the moon.

i love... the ripple effects of luffy just being himself that spread throughout the world of one piece, and i think this is one of the best examples. luffy befriended coby all the way back in chapter two, mostly by accident, and now, nine hundred and some chapters later, that’s what leads to drake joining the strawhats’ side. because drake is friends with coby who says luffy is trustworthy, so when drake is stuck with nobody else to turn to, he turns to luffy. 

moments like this really reinforce just how much the world and story of one piece is built on relationships between people, and i really like that. i like that instead of necessarily being built around abstract ideals or morals, characters’ actions are, more often than not, motivated by either specific personal goals or by their relationships with other characters. it feels much more true to life.

i like the loss of kiku’s arm, because it showcases exactly how serious the fight is on both sides. it both shows that kaidou is fighting to maim and kill and do whatever it takes to win, and that the akazaya are fully prepared to take whatever he throws at them. kiku gets back up smiling after losing her arm. neither side in this fight is even close to backing down, now or ever. 

i genuinely can’t believe how long it took me to talk about yamato, so let me just say: i love him so much. part of this, i’m sure, is my personal bias towards any and all kickass queer characters, but part of it is just- he’s so cool. he’s ten feet tall and carries a club about as big as he is and tanks explosions like they’re nothing while also bickering with luffy and falling out of ceilings and generally being like... stupidly lovable. 

i just like yamato a lot. 

a thousand chapters in, and every strawhat but robin has had a moment where they declare luffy is going to be the king of the pirates, but honestly, i think nami’s might be my favorite yet. nami has always been a person who acts at a distance, not one inclined to direct confrontation and putting herself in danger-

and yet, when it comes down to it, when faced with a choice between death and disavowing her captain’s dream, even when assured by usopp that she would be fully justified in lying for her life, nami chooses luffy. even in the most dire of circumstances, all of the strawhats know luffy is going to be the king of the pirates, and none of them would ever deny it.

i kind of alluded to this back in my dressrosa post, but i really like the development of law’s new dream being discovering the meaning of the will of d. it just feels like a very good and natural progression for his character, given he’s the only holder of the will of d who we’ve been shown is consciously aware of it and what it might mean. and in general, i like seeing him having something else to work towards after doflamingo’s defeat.

i’ll end this by just saying i am so desperately curious to know what is in that book, and what yamato knows about the will of d, about the dawn of the world, about laugh tale. 

guess we’ll find out, huh?

thanks for reading through to the end!! i had a lot of fun putting these posts together, and writing them up was a really cool way to be able to compile my thoughts headed into chapter 1000 and beyond. i can’t wait to see where oda takes us next. 

[randomshitwhenimhigh]

CHAPTER 1000 BABY

First of all, the hype, my heart, it's too much, the minks letting Luffy through is a testament of the true power he holds, getting allies and people on his side because he's cool. Marco gives me LIFE, he just grabbed King and Queen by the neck and told them to stop being bummers and let Zoro through, then, he proceeds to yeet Zoro into the distance, just like Team Rocket on every Pokemon episode, I love this pineapple turkey, i want to see him fight more.

There are only supernovas up there to fight Big Mom and Kaido, the other pirates might stay down to keep that fight isolated, it's a fight at night isn't it? It will be a nice new dawn on Wano, I don't doubt Luffy and company will win, first because it's Luffy, second because he has great friends and third he's the protagonist of a shonen, although one piece is atypical, Luffy wins for him and his friends, he faced enemies way stronger and won thanks to team work and his own will, the will of the fucking D and here I start talking about Yamato, wasn't that a nice transition?

Yamato is a national treasure, he's kept that old diary for so long and he's now giving it back to it's rightful heir. Toki must have protected the diary, or maybe Hiyori while escaping. Omg I completely forgot Momo was on both Whitebeard and Roger's ships, he was born on the first, and I also remembered that motherfucker Orochi, hungry for power, stabbing Oden in the back with such strength, I'm surprised his little arms didn't fall off, and the worst part is I'm SURE that piece of shit is still alive. RAYLEIGH KNEW WHO LUFFY IS, I mean he knows his significance, I shall re read one piece once it's over to rejoice on all that foreshadowing, when I fucking read it to my nephews and nieces I'll be laughing hysterically inside my head as I tell the tale.

I'm still salty about Ace, he ended up dying and was still a symbol of the old era of pirates as Roger's son, he just wanted a family, adventures and to make his existence valid, and he was so much like Roger, they get drunk all the same and Yamato is right, they'd have gotten along, Roger will have to get used to the co parenting thing with Whitebeard on the after life, and they both would have to get used to Ace favoring his mom. Someone tell me if there's fan fiction about this and I'll read it.

I'm super random today, anyways, it's confirmed both Luffy and Roger shared a dream and the will of, probably, Joyboy, my man, the legend, the myth. What the fuck is his dream, maybe to join all the seas? All Blue I'm looking at you, or to make an intricate system to rule the world in a peaceful way, under the watch of Meat McMeaterson, humanity's hope for law and order?

I adore Yamato, he has quickly climbed the stairs to my heart, he is just a nerd wanting to watch the end of his favorite book, his dream is to sail and go on adventures, and he's protecting the most important thing on Wano right now. I love how Oda shows that Yamato is the one who gave Ace his vivre sheet, he was hoping to sail with him in the future and I really hope Ace can fullfil that promise through Luffy, no loose ends in Oda town.

Kaido and Big Mom think they are so hot but Luffy is here to put them in their places, I love Luffy, he's the fucking sun and I'll follow him, go Luffy. They must defeat Kaido in order to open Wano's borders which seems to be the key to start the end, I think they'll have a stop at the island of giants since it was discussed all those chapters ago at Little Garden, how the fuck can I remember the names of islands I read years ago when I started one piece so easily and I can't remember what I ate for breakfast unless I try really hard, why. Anyways, I meant to say that Oden wanted to open Wano and knows that in order to do it Kaido must be defeated, he and Big Mom are remains of the will of Rocks who was also a D if I'm not wrong, although Blackbeard is the real threat here, he seems to be the final boss and the way he was foreshadowed during Oden's flashback, Buggy said he doesn't sleep at all and we know he was with Whitebeard all that time to find the yami yami no mi, he probably wants the same thing Rocks wanted, to be King of the World, and isn't it a fitting contrast to Luffy, he wants to be King of Pirates but not because of the title but because he thinks that the freest man on the sea is the one who holds that title, and let's not forget his real dream, Meat McMeaterson must ascend and become president.

Back to the story, Luffy just passed by those clowns as if it was nothing, power move, and the way Kin'emon asked for his help, that scene always happens and it always pumps me up, Luffy is helping them because they are his friends first, also he saw the horrors up close, he promised Tama she would never be hungry again, and it's so fucking beautiful, as I said Ace's promises are being fulfilled through Luffy. Look at Law receiving orders, good for him, if I remember correctly he doesn't appreciate being ordered around. Big Mom and Kaido shouldn't underestimate the supernovas, I mean both of them are probably stronger, but their abilities and TEAM WORK will save the day, for all the power they hold together they're not stronger, due to what we know about their story as crewmates in the past, they can't work as a team.

Luffy punched him right in the face, he had his power up during his stay in prison. All the flashbacks from all the suffering Luffy witnessed in Wano makes the whole panel come out beautifully, that punch was charged with the anger that was born in Luffy from all of these experiences, and when he turned back and told them right to their faces that he was going to be the pirate king, Luffy you're already King in our hearts.

I hope we get more revelations during 2021, Oda is no longer beating around the bush, he is finally revealing more and more, including that flashback with Oden which I can't wait to watch animated. I can't finish this rant without saying I'm blessed, Killer is here, hope there's a cure for smiles, maybe Law and Chopper will come up with something, but hey at least for now we have Killer, hope he gets to ratatattatatatata yeehaw slash slash both Big Mom and Kaido, go get them you beautiful bastard.

To sum up, all this lore will kill me, i just wanna know the truth, give me the truth Oda, I'm ready.

[victorie552onepiecespeedrun]

Reading One Piece pt 315: One Man, One Heart

Chapter 563

Thoughts:

- Volume 58 “Paramount War”! It looks great

- author’s note is from 2010. It’s not as gut-punching as 2004 or 2008. We’re crawling forward! :D

- hey, Marineford looks like a crescent moon. I know it makes their bay safer (and is helping marines in surrounding pirates now) but I wonder if it’s significant story-wise)

- on character page, Shanks “was involved in a scuffle with Kaido in the New World”. At least he’s doing something different, bless

- fuck, so much reaction panels, it’s not good

- “Pops!” D:

- Sabaody is seeing this!

- “Whitebeard… has been stabbed!” looks like Sengoku and Garp know something

- oh no, it’s a legit betrayal D:

- “Tell the truth, Whitebeard! You’re in cahoots with the Navy! You made a deal with them to save the Whitebeard Pirates and Ace!” …what? That doesn’t make sense

- no, it really doesn’t. If they had a deal, why even go to war? They could do it behind closed doors if they would feel like it

- …but Garp and Ace… Garp and Sengoku are friends… Jimbei knows Whitebeard Pirates quite well… alright, it’s not Totally impossible but NO, IT STILL DOESN’T MAKE SENSE

- ok, it got personal as HELL. Speech incoming

- “He’s led us into a trap! I never knew Ace was the son of Gold Roger! When you took me under your wing… I was all alone in the world! And you know why! Because the crew I fought with for so long had been annihilated by Gold Roger himself! YOU KNEW I HATED THAT MAN!” :( now This is real family drama

- “You should’ve told me the truth! That Ace was Roger’s son and you wanted to make him the next Pirate King!! I trusted you… but you’ve already betrayed me! You were laughing at me when I became friends with Ace!” ok, that sounds a little crazy

- “Ace was the most important thing to you and now he’s been captured!” you know, I DO wonder if Whitebeard wanted to make Ace a Pirate King. It sure makes more sense than Whitebeard becoming one. I mean, he’s old and super sick now. And if he actually wanted the title, he would go for it 20 years ago, right? And Sengoku DID say Whitebeard wanted to “crown” Ace (people in One Piece don’t really lie I noticed, sometimes they just don’t know things)

- “That’s why you sold out 43 captains under you! It’s their lives in exchange for Ace’s! You made a deal with Sengoku so that the Whitebeard Pirates and Ace would be spared! Isn’t that right? YOU MADE FOOLS OF US ALL!” …I don’t know what to say to that. Big if true, I guess? Big Oof? No, I really don’t know. Whitebeard, it’s your turn to speak, defend yourself      

-  wait, we’re not done yet

- “We came here ready to die for you and Ace! And look! The Navy’s only attacking… us! We’re surrounded by walls of ice! There’s no escape for us now!” …I don’t understand the logic in this. Of course they’re only attacking you, you’re the only enemy here? And it’s a battle? That you’re losing? I guess you’re not so ready to die as you thought :(

- now there’s doubt everywhere, that feels so wrong

- “Pops! Is it true?” fuck, say something already, Whitebeard

- (he’s still stabbed by the way)

- “I know it was a miracle I was able to stab you even once! But I don’t care what you do to me now! Go ahead and kill me!” yikes

- mini flashback? Wait, so some marine told him that?

- “When the all out attack is  launched, we’re only going to kill the allied pirates! We won’t touch Whitebeard or his men!” …there’s an alliance in place? I didn’t even notice. I though all of his fleet here lived under Whitebeard? Shit, suddenly it DOES make sense

- “No way! It can’t be true!” “But it does seem like they’re only attacking us!” shit

- “Whitebeard sold out his friends… to the Navy?” SABAODY STILL SEES ALL

- Whitebeard, say something

- “I didn’t want to believe it!” You fool! They’re tricked you! How could you doubt Pops!?” “You’re just playing dumb, Marco!” WHITEBEARD

- “Ace’s indeed Gold Roger’s son. He picked on the one that it would bother the most. Very cagey of him.” …is that Marco or Squard speaking now

- “AOKIJI!” Sengoku had ENOUGH OF THIS

- (God, it’s true then…)

- “Was that war a set up from the beginning?” Sabaody DID get cut off! Way too late though

- now I know why Sengoku didn’t want world to see that

- as I thought, Buggy is frozen solid. Too late      

- they’re doing the wall thing

- “That bastard…” Crocodile?

- “Cut the pretense, Whitebeard! The man who defeated me could never be the weakling I see before me now!” even CROCODILE is mad now! Whitebeard, fucking SAY something already

- “Yeah, pops could’ve dodged that attack easily, even if he was caught off guard.” Marco, what are you thinking? You didn’t know…? Wait, why did Whitebeard let Squard stab him then? What the fuck is happening now?

- “His health continues to deteriorate!” …is this some sick assisted suicide attempt

- Whitebeard speaks!

- “Squard, how dare you draw your sword against your father? What a stupid son you are!” NOT WHAT WE WANT TO HEAR WHITEBEARD

- “You may be a fool… but I still love you.” …ok, that we want to hear

- “You’ve always been one of my most loyal followers. Who was it who lured you into the dark depths of doubt?” the answer is…

- …Akainu! That’s why he was walking around instead of standing by Ace! He didn’t like the scheming?

- “I know how much you hate Gold Roger. But it’s wrong to condemn a child for the sins of his father, Squard. What did Ace ever do to you?” finally, some COMMON SENSE. Thank you, Whitebeard

- “Be good to each other. Ace isn’t the only one who’s special to me. I love… all my children” wow, powerful

- “You’re as cunning as ever, Sengoku. You’ve managed to drive a wedge between us.” Wait, so it’s not true? What?

- “YOU THINK I WOULD EVER SELL OUT MY SONS?” I DON’T KNOW, I DON’T KNOW YOU

- the ice is down!! Whitebeard shattered it!

- “If you are pirates, decide now who you believe!!” DO I HAVE TO

- “Our ships can sail clear! We can escape whenever we want!” “I knew it was a lie! The Navy tried to fool us!” so it WAS a scheme!? At least morale is back!

- …Whitebeard, what are you thinking…?

- “Weakling, eh? I see you don’t mince words. But you expect too much of me, Crocodile! I’m just one man with one heart. They call me a fiend and a monster, but I can’t remain the strongest forever! If I can help one young pirate achieve his destiny, my life will be complete. Isn’t it enough?” …Whitebeard, so it’s true after all?

- “If you’re coming with me, kiss your lives goodbye! Let’s go!” there he goes

- “Stand your ground! The most dangerous man in the world is charging us!” lol, ok

I know I wanted mind games but GOD

rOP 314  rOP 316

[ratfuck]

first impressions of cyberpunk 2077/critique I guess

In all honesty it's a superb open world action game, with roleplay elements ranging from okay to eh

Graphically, the game is beautiful, but thats like, the selling point of the game

It is VERY buggy, no doubt about it, not as bad as a bethesda game but they really could've delayed it a couple months to fix things. I haven't had any crashes, but the most stand-out problems I've had so far include:

Character model problems, with shit like cigarettes and chopsticks floating around in the air away from character models

I viewed my V in the mirror in the apartment and for some reason she was now bald, albino, and the gamma was so blown out it looked like a fucking nuke went off

I summoned my car and it teleported a few feet in the air above civilian NPCs, dropped on them and killed them, and the cops then went nuts and killed me

Tutorial elements on the HUD not going away, even appearing in the in-game menus

Performance needs optimized badly. I have a high-end PC I built for games and editing and processing RAW-format video and I still have framerates dip into the teens, even after lowering shading and lighting settings

Too early in the game to really tell, but I enjoy the writing so far. I was worried that this game would drift towards "Wow! Cool neon dystopia!" and the shit that makes cyberpunk punk would be given the back seat, but I'm happy with how the game covers themes expressed in classical cyberpunk media and literature like inequality, racism, poverty in a way that isn't performative or edgy/offensive

I am also VERY surprised with the game's inclusion of trans people in a way that isn't a fucking joke or demeaning to us. While I agree that more can be done with character creation, such as nonbinary pronouns as well as different body types, I was expecting a Polish developer financially backed by the Polish government would fuck it up

I've heard that the feminine voice for V is the best way to play the character as apparently the masculine voice actor's performance is dry and makes dialogue stale, I dont know if it's true but I really do enjoy the feminine VA

Gameplay is pretty tight, the combat is fun and player mobility allows you to experience Night City in an extremely immersive and fun way, however...

Driving needs fixed, with PC keyboard controls being unenjoyable, feeling like you're driving a hockey puck in anything larger than a small car

The in-game economy is broken, with it being nearly impossible to buy things such as weapons, clothing, cars, cybernetics because they're damn expensive and trading in junk you find and obsolete items nets in little cash, though I feel like this is almost purposeful as a subtle commentary of capitalism or w/e

You are constantly swapping out things in your inventory for shit you find on enemies or lying around, leading to you not being attached to weapons for more than an hour. This also unfortunately carries over into clothing, you may find stuff that you want V to wear because it looks cool as hell, but you almost always end up replacing it for whatever you find that has higher stats just so you can survive better, leading to you dressing in mismatched and unappealing clothing

The crafting system is all but useless. As described above, you're constantly swapping out shit for shit with better stats. It takes way too damn long to gather resources to craft new items, and by the time you do, the item you crafted is already made obsolete

That's about all I have for problems I have with the game, everything else about it is pretty damn good. The sound design and soundtrack is fucking phenomenal, the game world and visuals are stunning, the worldbuilding is fantastic, the writing is great with both main and side stories and character dialogue being entertaining and thoughtful, it's frankly superb in most areas. If the gameplay mechanics, as well as the many bugs and performance issues I've described above were fixed, it'd probably be the best game of the decade

As for how it fares on the Lawnmower Man/System Shock 2 Media Perfection Test,

Body Horror? Certain NPCs with cybernetic augmentations look fucking terrifying and twisted and horrific, metaphorically demonstrating how consumerism and runaway technology can act like a sort of parasitic infection. Pass

Apes/Monkeys? I haven't seen any simians in game yet, however, there are frequent usage of chimps and monkeys in street art, advertising, and graphic design everywhere across Night City, along with the "Gorilla Arms" cybernetic augmentation. Uncertain

Mind Powers? Nothing related to psionics is featured in game, and cybernetic powers do not count. Fail

So overall, it's a damn great game marred by bugs, performance issues, and features that weren't given enough time and need to be overhauled or fixed. Wait a few months so these things will be patched before purchasing the game, or just pirate it since it's gonna make billions of fucking dollars anyway

[kheta]

In a Family of Monsters

Canon-Divergence, somewhat crack! Mostly just me wanting to write but being stuck atm. SOO... Garp adopts Buggy.  thats the main prefix lmao, nothing else but this idea.

Buggy sees him at Loguetown after Roger’s execution and goes apeshit, because him and Shanks had only just had a fight and Buggy’s lost his own crew because of this bastard...And Garp sees this weak little Cabin Boy who could be an Upstanding-Marine™ if he trained better and he’s like..Wtf it’s not the brat I need to collect, but I Want Him.

Buggy fights and stabs and ultimately complains all the while, but Garp gives no shits and just steals him (to the protest of a few officers saying you can’t just steal people)

Insert two years of Garp training the shit out of Buggy by throwing him into wildly risky situations and him rolling with it, because if he can survive Roger’s bullshit he can survive being in a forest with large as heck animals and fighting goddamn Lieutenant Commander Boggart. (He draws a line at the Seaking Plan however, he doesn’t care how much Garp wants to see if has conquerors Haki, he will die before willingly facing a Seaking ((he doesn’t btw))

Garp tells Buggy nothing about Rogue, because he’s got some tact and it doesn’t seem like the kid will appreciate the your captain had a son bomb. If he had, he would have thought of going to Baterilla way before the World Goverment did though (bc I HC that Buggy is from there and Rogue stole him out to sea to keep Shanks company among other more serious reasons, bc I fuckn can okay)

Anyway, they still get there too late, because by the time Buggy knows and is demanding to go, Marine Presence is already there and Garp is absolutely forbidden to work anything about the Roger Pirates anymore bc the Gorosei don’t trust him.

But...Rogue does spend more than a damn day with her son cause even if its a long time later, Ace isn’t born yet and they try to keep her as well and alive as they can.

It doesn’t work, but she loves her son so much and DEMANDS Buggy tells Ace everyday how much she loved him and wishes she could be there for him and Buggy kinda just deciding to raise Ace because Rogue was still his mentor at the end of the day.

Because Buggy is attached, Garp sends the duo off to Dadan’s because he can always turn Buggy into a Marine later, someone needed to look after Ace in the meanwhile however.

This turns into Big Brother Buggy, who loves Ace even if he doesn’t show it, always telling Ace good but true stories about his Dad (Especially when the kid first doubts that his dad was ever really good) and hates Luffy bc of the dumb strawhat and Shanks and kinda tolerates Sabo cause he makes Ace happy.

And like, he doesn’t even love Ace bc of who he is in terms of Roger’s kid, he loves Ace bc he was a broken up teen with no prospects in life and all the anger of the world on his shoulders and there’s this baby, with cute dark eyes and a bright, gummy smile and an array of familiar freckles and he Melts.

Ace doubts Buggy’s, bc all the love in the world (AKA Canon-Luffy’s sorta love) wouldn’t give this child anything resembling a healthy sense of self worth, so he kinda tries as hard as he can to kill Buggy. (Only cause I wanna write funny failed murder attempts and Done Buggy looking at his dismembered body callously and with regret) Dadan calls it a rebellious phase, whereas Buggy calls it a Stupid Goddamn Tantrum.

Garp makes Buggy call him Gramps, despite the forced adoption and every bit of ‘training’ the kids get, is followed with a scared Buggy tryna protect them from certain death while in the shadows, bc Garp might be crazy but his brand of crazy Worked and it made people fucking strong, he knows okay. So if he has to stand by and make sure they don’t die while accepting them getting hurt, just to make sure no one else could harm them, then he fucking will stand by.

Anyway the rest of the series is Big Bro Buggy (reluctantly) saving the day and surprising people (himself included) with his strength (And with Garp The Fuckn Hero tryna whip him into being a Marine Officer, you can bet he’s stronger than Canon Portrayal) 

I have more to this idea, but like when I can be bothered...So yup. That’s it. We fucking up canon before the MC is even born and I live for it!

[buckysmischief]

Spaces Between - 1/?

Pairing: Loki x Reader

Word Count: 1.5k

Summary: The Snap took everything from you, who knew Loki would be the one to put back all your pieces?

Warnings: thanos doesn’t kill loki, everything else is cannon with IW & Endgame (im sorry), language, fluff, angst

AN: Tessa is an oc, readers best friend

FTS Masterlist | Series Masterlist

☄︎

Spring 2018, 5 minutes later

“Yn, wake the fuck up!” Tessa panicked, pouring cold water on your face. You sat straight up, wishing she’d have just slapped you instead.

“How many times have I asked you not to do that?” you grumble, wiping the water off your face. “How long was I out this time?”

“About five minutes, where did you go?”

You passed out for two minutes the first time you teleported from your apartment to California, but once you got used to traveling greater distances your body got used to it. Space though? It was surprising you woke up before the day was over.

“Uh.. I’m not exactly sure. Loki got me there, I just brought us back. Oh shit! Thor and Hulk, I gotta go get them!”

Before you could get up and attempt to travel back to space, Loki was at your side. “The bifrost opened while you were out, but we do need to find the Avengers. Thanos is coming and as much as I hate to admit it, I think it would be best if we worked together.”

“That big purple guy? What’s his deal?” you ask.

Loki explained everything to you and Tessa. The stones and what Thanos plans to do with them, even what Thanos has already done throughout the galaxy. You then explained to him what happened to the Avengers in Berlin, but reaching out would still be a better option.

“Do you know where we could find them, can you jump there?” you’re not an expert on Loki by any means, but you’re positive you can hear panic in his voice.

“Yeah, let me get some things together really quick and we can go.” grabbing Tessa and pulling her into your room.

There was too much going on. Not even an hour ago you were on a run in the park and now you had to help prevent half of the galaxy from dying? What were you even supposed to do? It’s not like you’ve had any training, just what you’ve picked up on your own.

“Tess, I need you to stay here. Call out of work if you have to but please.. don’t leave the apartment.” you were throwing clothes into a bag, not even realizing you were panicking until Smokey rubbed against your leg. You didn’t even want a cat, but Tessa insisted. And she was right, Smokey was basically your emotional support cat at this point.

“I will, Yn. But you gotta go save the world. I love you!” She gives you a hug and pushes you to Loki. “And you, keep her safe.”

Loki nods, “I give you my word, no one will lay a finger on her.”

Later that day, after Thanos

After leaving your apartment with Loki, you ended up arriving at the compound the same time as Captain America and a few others. No one was happy to see Loki, but once Bruce Banner told them what had happened (and that Thor thought he had died), everyone felt better about you two traveling to Wakanda with them.

The battle was unlike anything you’ve ever seen, worse than the battle of New York. When everything was said and done, there were bodies and blood - and dust - everywhere. But Loki kept his word. You had a few cuts and bruises, sure, but you were alive. The same couldn’t be said about half of the world, or anywhere else for that matter, though.

You were still on the battlefield with Loki, neither one of you were there when Thanos showed up. When he noticed you watching soul after soul disappear, he suggested you go back home to check on Tessa and Smokey.

“I’m afraid they won’t be there.” you finally look up at him, tears falling down your face. “They’re the only family I have left, what if they aren’t there?”

“I’ll go with you, you don’t have to do this on your own, little one.” He wrapped his arms around you and waited until you were ready to leave.

When you jumped to your apartment, you landed on the outside of your door, too afraid to open it. “It’s probably best to just get it over with..”

“I know, I know,” you turned the knob, immediately hearing The Office playing in the living room. You grab Loki’s hand and push the door open, venturing further into the apartment.

It wasn’t an act of affection he was used to, and his first reaction was to jerk away. But then he felt you squeeze his hand for comfort. He felt his heart swell, silently vowing to always protect you from this moment on, feeling great pride knowing you saw him as your protector.

You walk through the kitchen and yell out for Tessa, even shaking Shadow's favorite toy, but you didn’t hear anything. Loki helped you check the bathroom, her bedroom, your bedroom. Still, nothing. You had been saving the obvious option for last, hoping, praying that your worst fears weren’t coming true.

As you walked into the living room you didn't notice anything out of the ordinary, but then you looked to the spot on the couch where Tess and Smokey sit and just see a pile of ash. Loki saw the look of your face and was standing ready to catch you any way you fell. But you just stood there.

Numb.

The only person in this world who really knew you was gone. A victim to a war she had nothing to do with and yet she’s gone, not knowing what the hell was happening. It wasn’t fair. You failed to stop Thanos and yet here you were, alive. But all of these innocent, good people that had no fight in this war were just gone.

“I.. I need to get away from here.” you whisper. “I’m gonna pack, you don't have to come-”

“Nonsense, of course I’m coming.” he interrupted. “I told you you didn’t have to do this on your own and I meant that.”

You went to your room and packed all of the clothes that you could, and all the other essentials. After grabbing your bag you stopped at Tessa’s room and opened the door, working yourself up to go in. “What do you need in here?”

“Tessa’s blanket,” you sigh, “it was mine but she just loved it so much I kinda just let her have it. I can’t leave it here.” Standing up, you fold the small blanket and hold it in your arms.

You both leave the apartment and discuss ideas about where you could lay low for a bit, until you know it’s safe. Loki had been the one to remember the bunkers Rhodey was talking about the day before. When Tony Stark remodeled the Compound he added some bunkers, because apparently, you have to be prepared for everything.

Instead of jumping there, you decided you needed a walk. You needed to process everything that happened and maybe walking for a couple of hours would help, but by the time you found a bunker your thoughts were still a mess.

When you looked around to see what all you had, you noticed there was plenty of food and toiletries, even a tv and radio. There was even a small kitchen and bathroom, but there was only one bed which might make things a little awkward. “It’s not as tech’ed as I imagined, but this will work.”

“Agreed. I’m going to take a shower and get some rest, I feel like you should do the same.” He was genuinely concerned about your mental state, and you knew he was right. “Okay, I’ll make us something to eat while you shower.”

While Loki was in the shower, you could only think about two things. 1) Tessa and Smokey, and 2) the sleeping arrangement. You hardly knew the man, but he’s done nothing but make you feel safe. And you didn’t know if it was losing Tessa, going through all that you had with him today, or a combination of both, but you wanted to keep him close.. you just didn’t know how to ask.

As you heard the water in the bathroom cut off dinner was ready, just regular spaghetti, nothing special. It was one of the few things that didn’t require much effort to make. Shout out to whoever's idea it was to add a spice rack, though. It was obvious to you that Loki had never had anything like it, but he was kind enough to give it a try.

“So,” he stands up from the table, putting his dishes in the sink, “I can sleep on the couch if you’d like.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, that couch is way too short for you. We can.. we can share the bed, if that’s fine with you” you suggested.

“I’d like that.” was all he said before he left you alone to take a shower.

☄︎

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[imaginesinthewind]

Being Sam and Dean’s little sister would include...

A/N: This turned out to be much longer than I expected but after Game of Thrones last episodes, I needed to drown myself into my other favourite fandoms to forget all the disappointment. Enjoy! Feedback is much appreciated.

- There would be a big age difference between you and them

- You would probably have the same father but not the same mother

- John came to rescue you after your mother died. You were very little by then, only 2 or 3 years old and you barely remember it

- But when John brought you home with him and introduced you to your new brothers, they thought you were the cutest little thing ever

- They would often play rock scissors paper to decide who would take care of you

- John would be obsessed by his hunts and the need to find Mary's murderer, so Sam and Dean would be the ones who raised you

- At first, they tried to keep you away as much as possible from “the family business”

- Dean would be more like a father figure to you and Sam would be your best friend and best confidant

- Your brothers would be very overprotective, but Dean would be the most protective one. As the eldest of the Winchesters, he would feel highly responsible

- They would be so afraid to make the same mistakes than their father when it comes to raising you. So they would attach the greatest importance to educate you, being present as much as they could in your life, loving you and making you go to school on a regular basis, despite what your father would probably think about it

- But Dean would also teach you how to prank Sam very young, much to the annoyance of the latter

- They would always defend you, especially against your father

- "Dad, she's only 5!"

- "Sam, Dean, she has to know what is out there, lurking in the dark."

- When you learned about it, when you learned that the monsters Sam and Dean were telling you about in your bedtime stories were real, you were terrified.

- So you always ended up sleeping in Dean’s or Sam’s bed at night to avoid nightmares.

- You were 6 when Sam left to go to Stanford and it made you very sad. You thought your brother didn't love you anymore

- Dean was a bit mad at Sam for making his baby sis sad

- From that time, you would have a unique bond with Dean, because you knew he would never abandon you

- You actually cried when Sam came back and he promised not to leave you anymore

- Sam would be on your back all.the.time after what happened to Jessica. He would be terrified that the monster who killed his mother and his girlfriend would come back to kill his little sister

- Bobby would literally adore you and you would jump into his arms everytime you get to see him

- He would also be horrified by the junk food Sam and Dean make you eat all the time 

- So he would insist on babysitting you as much a he could to be able to cook you delicious dishes. He would also come to pick you up after school when Sam and Dean are away. 

- Multiple nicknames from your brothers, their favourite being "baby sis, baby girl, baby, kiddo, kid, sweetheart or buggy"

- When your father died, you weren't really affected. You had no daughter-father relationship with him. Sam, Dean and Bobby were your true family 

- But when Dean died and went to hell, you cried for weeks

- Sam was just as broken as you were so he left you at Bobby's, who couldn't find the words to comfort you either

- When Dean came back, you didn't believe it was him at first.

- You ran away from him all the time in the first hours and it hurt Dean

- But he ended up confronting you on why you kept running away from him

- "How can I be sure it's really you and not some kind of demon or monster who came to make us suffer?" Is what you answered him. 

- So Dean would start telling you memories of you and him with so much details that it convinced you little by little. (A/N: I wrote a oneshot about it! You can read it here :) )

- The more he kept talking and the more you cried.

- It was him, it really was. 

- You crushed into his arms and he would hold you so tight trying to comfort you.

- "I-I couldn't d-do it, Dean."

- "Do what, babygirl?"

- "Living without you. It-It was so difficult."

- When you met for the first time the angel who saved your brother, you jumped into his arms to thank him, making Castiel so very confused.

- He would call you "little human" and you would spend a lot of time with him explaining the way humans and your world work 

- In return, he would tell you multiple stories about everything; angels, heaven, History...

- Castiel would adore you and would be as protective of you as your brothers 

- Crowley would have a soft point for you too and he would try to hide it. He would fail, though.

- You would be Sam and Dean top priority, they would always put you first of everything.

- But many would know that you are their “weakness”. This is why they would train you and teach you how to defend yourself. Just in case.

- Your brothers hated it but you eventually grew up. 

- When you got your periods for the first time, you were so afraid that you locked yourself in the bathroom.

- Dean threatened to smash the door but Sam handled it better and finally got you to open it after long explanations. 

- Suuuuuper awkward visits to the gynecologist with your brothers.

- Dean trying to flirt with the gynecologist if it's a woman and you rolling your eyes

- "Really, Dean?"

- When you reached your teenage years, things became more complicated 

- You loved your brothers, you really did. But you needed more space and more independance as you entered highschool.

- You would try to sneak out of the bunker at night and it would drive Dean insane.

-”You can’t force me to stay inside, Dean!”

- “Like hell I can’t! My house, my rules kiddo.”

- Honestly, you would argue with Dean a lot and everytime you would do it, you would run to Sam.

- He would be surprisingly understanding. 

- When you started to go on dates, you tried to hide it from them.

- But Sam could read you like an open book and made you spit it. Much to your surprise, he was not angry at all. 

- “Why would I be angry? That’s what teenagers do, (Y/N). And despite what we do, I want you to fully live your life. I don’t want to take that away from you. So feel free to talk to me about those things, alright? You’re my little sister and I want to know what happens in your life.”

- But you didn’t want to tell Dean, for the life of you (and possibly the boy/girl you were dating), even if Sam was telling you that you’d eventually have to tell him. 

- You waited for months, and when you eventually confessed to him that you were dating someone, you expected him to be angry. But not that angry.

- “Believe me (Y/N), I know what boys/girls of your age have in their fucking mind, and you are way too young for this shit!”

- You ended up screaming at each other's and saying things to hurt the other that you both regretted afterwards

- You cried a lot. But after a long talk with Sam, Dean came back to you to apologize. 

- “You have to understand me, (Y/N). I have seen the worst of people and you are my baby girl. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if anything bad happened to you.”

- Tons of fluff follows

- He eventually agreed to let you go on dates, but only if he could see the girl/boy before.

- You would roll your eyes at his condition and whisper something about him being over dramatic all the time, but deep down, you knew it was because he loved you.

- When you were 18, things started to calm down with Dean.

- You would learn how to cook on your own and you would cook all the time for your brothers.

- They eventually accepted you on hunts, and even when they didn’t, you followed them anyway.

- You three would be inseparable and unbeatable.