#hyunchroma 3

[sugiwa]

SUGIWA I THINK IM FINALLY ON TO YOU ABOUT PENNY’S FRUIT: “whatever she wished for she got” DOTS ARE CONNECTING IM SO SMART- (you definitely have hinted at this many times and i needed you to spell it out for me)

“penny would always be penny- of that Shanks was certain.” LOVE

i can’t believe i’m crying again over a damn ship, i should’ve known as soon as we got the ship lore

i was so happy this entire chapter because it started out with shanks and then we got to see more of paulie and penny (which i’ve been shipping since we first saw them together) RACING LIKE CHILDREN!! RUNNING JUST FOR THE ENJOYMENT OF LETTING LOOSE!!

CIPHER POL REVENGE ARC LETS GOOOO i wanna see feral penny so bad… but also my heart can’t take it anytime i think about penny and the stage pirates</3

(sugiwa you’re the best but i’m terrified because i know everything from here on out is going to destroy me)

*Clears Throat* I'll say only one thing--we're going to have deeper lore on it and its importance to Mary Geoise.

Shanks is really Penny's No. 1 fan. It's funny to think of the differences between her biological family and her adopted one. Like Shanks is a Penny-enabler. Her father would've been locking her up to stop her foolishness 😂

Yeah...the ship!! The Looking Glass was basically Penny's creation. I think there's a certain kind of grief that artists/writers/creatives experience when we let go of the things we make and give them over to the public. Penny gets a real life lesson on it here, but not all hope is lost! Actually, when you see what becomes of this 'death', it'll be a bit more special. The magic of it will not go away.

Lol, I was so disappointed when Paulie didn't join the Straw Hats (though I love Franky to pieces). I think that bias is coming out a bit. He's funny and a little odd, but has a good heart which I think Penny kinda picked up on and latched on to.

If Penny was a Marine, she'd fall under "Poetic Justice," so let's just say the symbolism is gonna be present there, but also it's Penny, so she's bound to trip up a bit before getting to her feet. Ah, we're going to see an allusion to the Stage Pirates--Penny has not forgiven anything now that she remembers.

Oh, I think we'll escape from Water 7 in a better state, only to encounter something frightening in Thriller Bark that finally has been breaking apart and needing Luffy to "save" her.

[sugiwa]

“Hack at it with a sword until all the was wrong was so thoroughly wounded that it would never recover.” this sentence is really neat to me i just thought i would tell you that.

“…Back home—we were supposed to go back home together.” this is when the tears started coming. question: would home to penny be the red force?

“There was no twinkling clang of the bells, not even a hum of response. Nothing but silence.” I’m telling my therapist about you. Also this sentence reminds me of Caliban’s monologue from the Tempest when he talks about his island and it makes me even more sad.

“Amid the ruin, it was the only thing untouched.” THE SOUL OF HER SHIP, their friendship and the love and the story that brought her ship to life is the only thing untouched- i’m not okay

“I missed you a lot when you were gone.” SHUT UP-

[If people never got their wishes answered, then they’d lose hope in the world/ a wish was only as powerful as the will behind it.] sugiwa everyday i get closer and closer to the truth of her devil fruit, mark my words i will figure it out😩

“Do you remember when we sailed all the way to Elbaf, only to have the fish blow us back?” I chuckled at this lol, Penny would be Odysseus hitting her crewmates over the head and calling them idiots if she had them

(“Oh, of course,” laughed her ship.) no because i thought the exact same thing when penny said that. it’s such a simple solution but of course she would resort back to it because the same love for writing and stories is the love that created the looking glass and binds them together. writing created the looking glass, why wouldn’t it be the same way penny keeps her alive.

i genuinely felt such relief when she said that and all the sorrow that i felt over what seemed like their farewell was soothed because nothing disappears or goes away forever as long as there is someone telling the story.

This is so lovely, so thank you for all the wonderful details in here. Home to Penny very much is the Red Force these days and I think it kinda fits within this theme of each of the Straw Hats having that one person to return to, only Penny's is somewhere ahead of them rather than behind them. We'll get into more details as to what Penny said to Shanks after that argument they had, but essentially, she was always going to go back (And as Beckmen told her, bring the World's Greatest Story with her).

It's not so much that Shanks replaced her parents or anything--she doesn't really view him as a father. Even when she didn't have all her memories, Penny knew that she was Lucy and Belle's daughter--she just didn't remember them (their voices, the things they did together, what they were like, etc.) What she did know about the Stage Pirates was only what she could bear to remember: that they had all died at the Navy's hand and because the World Government did such a wonderful job of making even saying Lucy's name a huge taboo (we will explore this further in Thriller Bark).

Hehehehe, her Devil Fruit....if Penny had been on Skypeia, she might have learned a bit more about it but, we'll wait for Robin to reveal something later on 👀

The Looking Glass's death was something I had written a while back. At first, I was going to keep her around as a shikigami (a paper spirit like in Spirted Away), but then I thought about the logistics of that and decided it was a bit messy and thought of what else I could do which is where we happened upon the ink. Using the ashes of her dream ship as the ink of her future story is so Penny, so I went with that angle. I also think that Penny needed some closure after losing so many of her friends without being able to save any of them--she's talked about it a bit, but we'll see later on that this build up of loss will prepare her for what happens at Marineford later on.

Also, if we think about the ink that is used on the Thousand Sunny--Nami's maps, Robin's studies, the Poneglyph etchings, and one day, Penny's stories--Penny's sharing a lot more of herself with the Straw Hats than she has with anyone else so far.

[sugiwa]

so i’m dumb and forgot to write a comment after i read the most recent chapter of CH so please accept the notes app thoughts i jotted down while reading it:

“a man named Byron who wrote a poem for every women he’d met” that’s hilarious lol, i love when you nod to real life poets and playwrights

penny melting into a pile of goo in her despair is so howl coded

“as long as she wanted to, penny could go anywhere she wanted” shivers

penny and luffy are such parallels of each other with their devil fruits, both being stolen from the world government and hidden away under the guise of another name

Smoker <3

“AND HIS SHOES WERE MISSING” CHILLS

Omg, that's never a worry!! I'm always just grateful to have something to share with everyone.

Yeah, Penny's runny through all the major literally figures 😂😂 I was going to an include a flashback of her first kiss and the character was named after Jane Austen, so lets say all of Penny's past lovers have really just been muses/people she inspired and vice versa. Her naming scheme with everyone is literally figures. I once contemplated her having a crew that she left under Shanks' fleet and everyone there was named after literary figures around the world.

Hahahah, funny that you mention Howl--Penny's room on the Red Force basically matches Howl's room.

Oh, it's not the first time we've had this notion of Penny going where she wants without any barriers--the Red Port was basically all about that, but we'll see this come up again later.

I really want to spoil someone with the Devil Fruit Lore, but I will refrain 😭😭

Smoker's finally putting the work in now.

Penny's not a forgive and forget type, so now that she 100% remembers what they did to her parents and their crew, she'll make sure everyone knows about it.

[sugiwa]

IM FOAMING AT THE MOUTH FROM THIS NEW CHAPTER

everything i could have possibly wanted was here:

penny leveling up, showing her against tashigi and smoker and then immediately after showing her against garp and sengoku INSANE SUGIWA INSANE, her skipping over garp because she’s sentimental <3 and (maybe) she doesn’t want to taint the memory of playful innocence with garp and luffy, mentioning roci, HER LAUGHING, (“Of course, I’m a Bard. I’ve always been one!”), the named attacks!!

“But she also knew something that Shanks often struggled with. They were in the midst of becoming legends too.” SCREAMS

the thought of reading everyone’s reactions to the events of this chapter I CANT WAIT

buggy is tagged in the story but he’s the only character w haven’t had an encounter with yet, is he going to play a major part in penny’s story?

also, we see penny grasp her conquerors but is her devil fruit still unawakened?

is this the point where penny makes a name for herself independent from Shanks? will she now be Bard Penny and no long Akahime?

okay i’ve talked enough. thank you for the new chapter, it’s amazing and i’m so excited to see what this means for penny going forward.

Okay, I'm going to put this under a read-more tab cause my reply is very long!

Hahaha, I contemplated making Penny depressed for a bit and went back and forth here, but I was like, nah, Penny's going to have the time of her life after this. The Navy's going to try and drag her down, but she's going to hold steady. I'm excited for the next chapter cause we have some pretty shocking events. We do see Penny begin to voice some of her grief, but there's a bigger break coming that allows the Straw Hats to step in and that'll be fun.

I think no matter how hard she tries to be otherwise, Penny very very much is the sentimental type and sometimes that sentiment gets in the way of common sense (but also if she attacked Garp, she might've been in Impel Down right now). Sengoku was 100% not expecting to hear Rocinante's name and Penny took a huge gamble with it, which we've seen her do before and kinda shock people with their own past. It's going to be fun to see the moment where that completely and utterly works against her 😂😂

Named attacks--so far, we've gotten one, which was the one she used against Big Mom and we'll come back to that one much later cause I didn't actually show you guys what it does.

Buggy and Penny will meet and it'll go down about as well as you can imagine. Penny has a very loving view of what she considers Shanks' best friend and Buggy just is not fucking expecting it. He's going to play his own part and we'll see more of him than you expect especially in the time skip 👀

So, I'd say Penny's strength with Haki lies primarily in Conqueror's, though she knows the other forms too, she doesn't really have to use it a lot especially in Paradise. She's slowly building herself back up to full strength, which will be needed as we get closer to Sabaody and Ace's execution. If she had remained on Marineford for much longer, she would've 100% fallen to Sengoku and Garp which is why she made a quick and necessary escape after a flashy show of power 😂

As for her Devil Fruit, it's not awakened. And we're going to see that there's moments when Penny kinda contradicts herself about it. She's actually the one who named it the Kopi Kopi no Mi because that was the easiest frame of reference she had as a kid for what it did. And as we know from the first chapter, it's not actually named in the Devil Fruit Encyclopedia, but as Doffy revealed, it's a fruit that the world government is very interested. And this comes to down to a theme that we've seen crop up in One Piece time and time again which is: scarcity of resources. We've seen wars because of it, the Celestial Dragon's greed and most recently their panic over the lost food stores. And Penny's fruit kinda solves all that with a touch of a hand.

As for the name Bard Penny--I still have a big reveal planned. I don't think Sengoku or the Navy necessarily want this spilling out right after she's attacked them, but they won't tie her to Shanks anymore, because this has now officially gone beyond him. We won't see the Akahime title nor her other one used past this point.

Thank you so so much for reading and dropping in my inbox!!

[sugiwa]

SUGIWA!!! i’ve been on vacation and came back to four new updates!? happy birthday to me?? i don’t want to bombard you with my thoughts on every single chapter so i’ll focus on the ones that won’t shut up in my head right now.

a reunions between brothers!! ace and sabo, questioning ace’s tattoo (hilarious!), the dynamic and simplicities of brotherhood, “what does it matter what has happened, he’s here now” WHAT DO YOU MEAN ONE IS GOING TO DIE?!?! (she comments with tears in her eyes)

all the interactions with ace and sabo, ace sabo and penny, penny and luffy WOW these four doofuses really do gravitate and circle around each other like planets.

i eat up absolutely every single scrap of shanks and the red hair pirates so these past few chapters have fed me most wonderfully.

things that keep me up at night: whitebeard’s thoughts on penny. are you going to write the meeting between shanks and whitebeard? penny’s devil fruit (WANO COME SOONER). penny and sabo in marineford. will there be another showdown between penny and blackbeard? penny and shanks reunion when? smoker and tashigi seeing penny again.

p.s. but penny is so don quixote coded. illusions of grandeur, a trusty steed (boat), ever-hungry need for adventure and a good tale (all in all, just a lovable delusional idiot <3)

I hope you enjoyed your vacation!! Lol, yeah, I was very inspired over the last few weeks and writing's my way of diffusing, so real life stress kinda had me at the keyboard.

I live and die by that one-shot Oda drew of Sabo saving Ace--we could've had all three of them meet as adults!! But, Luffy's development is so central to the plot. When I first read OP, I was sadder for Luffy than I was for Ace. His grief is so poignant and the anime really cuts deep with the scream, but the manga panels live in my soul.

Hahaha, they do gravitate toward one another. We haven't had an Ace, Sabo, Luffy flashback yet, but when we do, you'll see that there were a lot of traces of Penny left in Foosha, so even though they never met, Ace and Sabo kinda knew what she'd be like before meeting her. Penny's the one that got blind-sided by Luffy's family 😂😂

TBH, I could write a whole story on just the Penny + Red Hair Pirates. Penny really shares that aspect of not wanting to coast on someone else's fame like Buggy, but unfortunately for her, she couldn't really escape it since Shanks is still alive. She's been away for so long that going back scares her because she's changed so much and already was kinda the odd-one in the group. But she misses them so much, it's in everything she does.

Whitebeard’s thoughts on Penny: we will get these and we'll get a little insight into how he knew Penny's mom. RIP Lucy 😔.

Her Devil Fruit....no comment.

Marineford Part II: it's going to be a war. We'll also see the Warlords actually do a bit more than they did in the manga, so that'll be exciting. Actually, Sabaody, Impel Down, and Marineford are kinda a team-up between Sabo and Penny 😂😂

Ah, Blackbeard has his role to play too. We'll see him again.

Penny and Shanks reunion...let's say Film Red's gonna look like the prequel 😭😭

We will see Smoker and Tashigi soon too. We're actually going to see them in the immediate aftermath of Penny's escape in an upcoming chapter.

Okay, this is where my nerd-self comes out, yes to the Don Quixote parallel but there's this medieval French novel called Gargantua and Pantagruel and it's kinda where Penny's character came from. In the books, there's a character called Panurge and that was Penny's inspo (tbh, I was going to have her use Penny as a nickname to hide her more awful name, but then decided against it). Panurge coming from the greek panoûrgos meaning knave or ready for anything and in the opening sequence, Panurge goes on this long rant introducing himself in ten different languages, but in terms of story, Don Quixote fits beautifully and the fall from delusion to reality does parallel here, but as we'll see in the time-skip, Penny's built for wishing.

[sugiwa]

the jojo rabbit parallel with the shoes IM SICK I CANT HANDLE IT. childhood disillusionment caused by the world inevitably letting you down. loss of innocence. clipped fairy wings.

THE CHAPTER ENDING WITH HER IMPLYING THAT SHANKS WAS WHAT BROUGHT HER OUT OF BEING A PHANTOM AND BACK AS A LIVING HUMAN BEING

that freedom is everything but freedom with shanks and the red hair pirates is even more. i love them.

Also penny hearing the poneglyph-

It's funny how media bleeds into our writing. Penny mentioned that her father had been born from nothing and imagine what it's like for her to see him stripped of his dignity really in the last hours and how little care the World Government/Celestial Dragons have for human life that they'd toy with it even after death.

We've seen Penny try to shield other children from the same loss of innocence, most notable Luffy, but there's a few scatterings of random kids she meets along the way peppered throughout the story that kinda build on the same theme. So even if the trauma of her past wasn't accessible, she was still very much influenced by it and hopefully that came across in these last few chapters.

Yes, it's kinda fun to reread the last chapter and then go back to the first which kinda montages her initial few months with Shanks. We don't really see it from his perspective (that'll come later), but we see Penny really take to them. Shanks recognized that if he just dropped her off on the next island and left, Penny would find her way back on a pirate-ship no matter what.

As for your last comment...no comment👀

Thank you for dropping by and for reading!!💕💕