Ngl Clarisse's Scream From Pjo Ep2 HAUNTS Me. Like Yeah She's A Bully, Yeah She Doesn't Treat Percy Right,

"Where I come from, there's this belief — a saying — that telling narratives to wherever you are brings about a good journey. It goes like:

Stories to Scheherazade, shanties for Nautilus. Lullabies to Arden, poems for the Dawn.

I forgot the rest of it, but that's basically just the main point. I've been sailing for three years now. Singing different shanties every night on a boat in the middle of the ocean has you running out of things to sing over the years.

Sing one for me, would you?"

recently js listened to the whole epic the musical and then started warriors concept album. i'll find a way to related them to one piece somehow (ive gone back to my hamilton phase too so expect that as well)

GOOD LORD

i NEED that frame of the vine in upper yard (in SKYPIEA) falling to the golden belfry recreated as a renaissance painting (if no one has done it yet)

Chewing and gnawing on the irony One Piece continually shows with the main characters where they're doing objectively kind and helpful things and that's what gets them in trouble with the law. It's the selective application of criminal justice. The bias and room for corruption built into the system itself. It's delicious. It's horribly relevant. I'm obsessed.

2 😰

Every soldier walks to their stations. Those who lead makes their last inspections. Platoon 8 glances anxiously at the empty spot before them.

Grifh restlessly picks on a hangnail, "Shouldn't our Lieutenant be here already?"

"We don't even know his name," Said the guy beside him. Rovell? or something.

"Or her."

Grifh glanced at the woman in front. He thinks he should learn his co-workers names.

"As you said, we don't know yet."

Their very short conversing ends there as some guy higher up goes their way. Grifh looks at his tag — Ah, he's a Captain — and salutes.

"At ease," Captain grunts. He reads over the clipboard he's holding and looks at the empty spot.

Grifh's heart rate quickens. He's very nervous, okay? He prays internally for their Lieutenant.

"Platoon 8?"

They nod.

The captain sighs, "Don't expect your Lieutenant to come right away. Though, it says here she'll arrive in the evening."

Oh. How anticlimactic. He was quite curious.

"See? He says she's a she." Banter starts right back up. Always those two, somehow.

"That's literally not the point-"

Grifh tunes them out as he realizes that Captain never really told them their Lieutenant's name. He is left to wonder.

daily entry (ast.)

He walked. He walked the barren lands and dried seas. He walked everywhere and nowhere. He walked with nothing but Priscilla's head clutched to his chest, her body descrated from the destruction he himself caused. All that he left in his wake was his footsteps — and soon, his sanity.

So he talked.

He talked and talked. He talked through lifeless banks and ashen cities. He talked of everything and nothing — the war, the world, the origins. He talked and no one listened. But his words would be engraved on the world he would soon leave, quite literally hanging in the air waiting to be heard.

It's a punishment, he thinks to himself as he buries his everything.

It's only as he is entering his prison when the smallest speck of life grows from the skull that used to be. And it's only a million or a billion or infinite years later, where life is lush on the lands again.

A boy is born screaming — the voice in his head is deafening.

Ŧħɇ Nɇŧwøɍꝁ ɨs̷ n̷øŧ ħa̷ᵽᵽɏ.

"I'm sure he's got nothing to do with me!" says Luffy and I was waiting for him to say it. For him to hear all of this Nika lore and declare that, nope, I don't care, I'm not Nika, I'm not a liberator. It's just such a Luffy thing to do. But I know many fans actually will be shocked with Luffy's answer here or will just dismiss it. I have seen many opinions before that Luffy was always a liberator by choice, so becoming Nika is just natural course of events for him and he will have no problem embracing his role in the bigger scheme of things. Some even complained they hate that Luffy is Nika because they don't want Luffy to be the "fated hero" but instead a "from nobody to the king of the world" trope. But nope! Luffy just noped all of this himself.

Luffy is not a liberator and he's not an altruistic hero, he doesn't go from island to island aiming to save people, and if you think he wanted to, then please remember Fishmen Island and how unhappy he was with the idea of being a hero:

And now if you think Luffy changed since then because Dressrosa happened, then please remember what he asked of Momonosuke in Wano:

Yep, that's right. Luffy still *doesn't have any interest* in becoming a hero. If you think he's alright with that and changed his mind, then you're just not paying attention to him, sorry to say that. Luffy has been pretty consistent about this too and now he declared it yet again in Elbaf. It's the third time already.

You just think it's not a big deal because he so easily changed his mind in Fishmen Island, but it happened only because he had an actual reason to do that. Jimbei promised Luffy all the meat he wants. He gave him a *personal reason* to act like a hero, which is why Luffy agreed. And he did the same in Dressrosa. He wouldn't liberate that country if he didn't get attached first to Law and Rebecca (yes, in this order), and his crew to tontattas. They always do it for someone particular, for their friends. It's the same in Wano too, Luffy's constant motivation is Tama, Momo and Kinemon. He wants them to be happy, most of all, and he even says as much when he defeats Kaido: "I want a world where all of my friends can eat as much as they like".

There, he doesn't do it altruistically because he hates oppresion and villains who thrive on pain of common people and he can't stand seeing it. Yes, he probably thinks it's unfair, but he also grew up in Goa Kingdom, the very definition of unfair regime. He saves oppressed people only when they are his friends or has some other personal interest involved. He defeats the Marine base in Shells Town for Koby (and Zoro, later). He defeats Don Krieg so he can repay his food debt to Baratie. He defeats Arlong for Nami. He fights Wapol for Chopper (who saved Nami) and who he already considers his friend because of that. He fights for the Giants (Little Garden) and Vivi (Alabasta), Conis (Skypiea), Robin (Water 7 and Enies Lobby), Brook (Thriller Bark), Hachi (Sabaody) etc. Though, he does make friends rather easily, so usually it's not that big of a deal. But he isn't going out of his way to places he reads about in the newspapers that need to be liberated, he instead cares more for his own dream. He doesn't enter a certain island with the idea in mind that goes like "if I see some injustice here, I'm gonna bring this shit down". It's the other way around. He makes friends and realizes they're unhappy.

He wants them to be happy again and to live without regrets, and that's why he brings the shit down, whatever it is that makes people he cares about feel so unhappy. Because he thinks this is at least something he can do for his friends. Luffy doesn't think he can do a lot of things, he can't do much at all, but he can do one thing: beat up a guy when needed.

He knows how regret feels like ever since he believed Sabo died, he's not gonna sit there and do nothing next time something like this happens. That's why it's so important for him, to make sure his friends are happy. And that's why he beats up people and liberates countries. It's not for justice, he simply wants his friends to be happy.

But wait a moment, Luffy also wants freedom. Yes, he does. He wants to be the King of the Pirates, because for him it means to be free. And that's how he actually speaks about Nika as well:

He wants the freedom for himself. Isn't it funny that he thinks he already achieved it though?

And before you're disgusted by how selfish Luffy actually is, hear me out: Luffy is simply not a martyr. He won't die or sacrfice himself for the world to liberate it. He will instead die for the world if he thinks that will make his friends happy. Preferably though, he would want to survive and eat that meat with them, and be happy together.

Still, if you want him to be a liberator of a whole world it is actually possible, you just need to make it personal for Luffy, like I suggested. For example, put a person or multpile people who want to save/destroy the world (whichever option you fancy) on Luffy's crew. Luffy always cares for dreams of his crewmates and will always support them (because fullfilling their dreams will make them happy), so he would become a liberator if that helps them. But he would do it for them, not for the world.

Luffy is not a hero because he has a golden heart and a strong sense of justice. He's a hero when his friends are in danger instead, because instead of a golden heart, he simply has a big heart and makes friends wherever he goes. A martyr-like hero who sacrfices himself for people without caring for his own wellbeing is noble, but it's also not a healthy mentality, believe it or not. For starters, if you never care enough for yourself and are ready to throw your life away for a concept, what will happen with people who love you and care for you? Is it fair towards them to throw your life away without caring who you're leaving behind and how they will feel about it? Do you even care then for their feelings if your pursuit of greater good is more important to you? You can save the world and make people you love sad and unhappy, and like they don't even care anymore to live, because you were the one who made them happy and now you're gone. Did you save the world for them or destroyed it for them instead, as the result?

Luffy has his own interest in saving his friends too: so he's not alone again. Humans aren't selfless beings, but it doesn't automatically make us bad people either. And sometimes, while pursuing selfish things, we do something that appear to be extremely selfless. But at the bottom of it: we also do it for themselves, even if it kills us.

Tokyo Babylon taught me that every act is selfish, even if it appears like we do it for someone else: we simply want to feel better about ourselves then. There's nothing wrong with that, as long as we don't lose the sight of other people's feelings on our way. We can always share, after all, and that sharing is the bridge between the lone islands that people are.

Luffy, if he dies, will also say, just like Seishiro: "I didn't do it for you. I did everything by my own choice". For myself. Despite the fact it is also true he does it to make his friends happy. Being selfish and being selfless is like two sides of the same coin and both choices can end up actually hurting people. In the first case, because you care too much about yourself and too little about feelings of others, and in second case because you care too little about yourself and still too little about feelings of people that love and care for you. Can you spot the thing in common here?

1 🐮

Lucifer looked very distraught. Well, getting kidnapped by alien invaders can get very stressful, indeed. How a cow can look so... expressively distraught is something Cas wouldn't care to understand.

He relates.

daily entry (ast.)

i NEED that frame of the vine in upper yard (in SKYPIEA) falling to the golden belfry recreated as a renaissance painting (if no one has done it yet)

it might seem

... crazy what i am

about to say

help i love this movie

this makes sense in my head