The Scales, as Daffodil full well knows, must always kept in balance.
If not in one way, then another.
She's sold enough goods, traded enough favors, to know that much.
It doesn't have to be a law of nature for it to be so, it's simply inevitable with how living beings work.
Every Closed Door will be Opened one day. Every Dream will end, with its Dreamer waking up. Many times, it's curiosity that drives such endings, as ridiculous as that is to claim.
But it's true.
A woman's partner experiments with a power source she never should have touched and the woman burns her soul within her creation to save that partner in exchange.
A man wants to know how to make life anew and kills a cat in the process. He brings it back, but it's still not quite the same. He regrets that more, than his fellow students that he slays.
A woman seeks heaven and perfection, treading on the bodies of twins and twins to do so. Only to go mad when that door finally opens to her.
Daffodil has seen many deny the price, only to pay in the end.
But this time...this time the Scales are not balanced towards her. No, this time is Daffodil's side that is too light.
For what do you do to pay someone who saved an entire existence? A life, of Daffodil's?
Why, pay it back with another life, that is all she can do.
Hope to do. And Daffodil, knowing her Scales must be weighed, gifts the far off mind of a lost Keeper a body.
Only that is only the first step to making all things Balance.
Ever since someone called Imu a yandere I've been thinking
what if Dragon got into a relationship with someone while he was away from Imu, someone who can't just be eradicated,maybe they don't know who specifically,or is someone the WG can't fuck with like a yonko or smth
he deserves nice things and Imu deserve to seethe like the little bitch he is and be dumped by a 3rd person(joyboy,lili and now dragon that blob is a chronic fumbler)
I also support Dragon remaining happily single but it being faked that he's dating (or simply giving false impression that what's happening), so Imu seethes over absolutely nothing while Dragon lives his best life.
I think his relation with the knights will change from the og, right? Because in this Au he’s related to mu, i think his hate to garlic will never change and he still called him banana head, but for shamrock? I don’t think so, i really think the only one who could understood luffy loneliness more than anyone, maybe sham told luffy about his twin? And how awful the under world changed him from what supposed him to be? but that’s will not stop luffy from wanting to go there, cause his own father ( I assume imu told him about dragon? And he’s coming back) and know shamrock twin also went there! no matter how imu raised luffy and how much he had the nerona in him he also had monkey and the D will. Also i think luffy will be more stubborn more than canon and how he sees himself.
I don't know, maybe?
Honestly, Luffy was an annoying little kid, who comes across as weird. It's hard to see him fitting in well into Mary Geoise at any age, as Luffy.
Odds are decent he would have annoyed the fuck out of Shamrock too. Like maybe Shamrock would made that comparison and reached out, like you think. But I'm placing my bet how Shamrock simply not wanting to talk about it at all, especially about someone who apologized for Shamrock being in the Holy Land.
Luffy still thinks Shanks is the better twin, in any case.
How would Rainmaker Magnolia react to the events of who can grow me a new brother au?
(Hm, that's a thought. @triscribe and @oswaldthatendswald, for an AU crossover.)
When the Red Force surfaces from Fishman Island, the surface is foggy. Unexpected weather.
The perfect weather to ambush people in, Benn thinks. And sure enough, there's that flying of the Knights coming through the foggy sky. A whole pack of them.
Not as quick as when Shamrock ambushed him earlier, to draw his Captain out, but they wouldn't be. They want to make a show of this, Benn'd place berri on it.
Sure enough-
"You really did prove too weak in the end, did you, Shamrock?" Head asshole, Garling, rattles out. "Always too soft for your twin, who betrayed you and the Throne."
The man taps at the hilt of his sword. "Apologize for your transgression and your death will be quick."
Shamrock meets Garling's eyes. Not steadily. But he does.
"I would do it again, for my brother. In a heartbeat."
"Shame." Something how he says it, yeah, Benn doesn't think he's really disappointed at all.
Flash.
Observation Haki announces, there's someone in the fog now. Someone who wasn't there before.
A person who walks forward, out of the heavy fog, in dark robes and wide brimmed hat. A naginata not unlike Whitebeard's taps against the ground.
Benn narrows his eyes. "Who are you?"
The hat tilts to the side. "A ghost."
There's so muttering and hissing from Knights. Something about a 'Zaza,' a word choice that makes Shamrock narrows his eyes in turn and Benn notes the reaction to ask about later.
Right now, there's a third party who's just entered the picture. One that could be an enemy.
The fog swirls around them, and in their movement, ah, that's a woman. A woman who moves to stand between the twins and the Knights.
The woman sweeps her hat off her head. Revealing red hair, tangled and long, flowing down her back. For everyone to see that it's the same shade as Shanks' and Shamrock's.
"You will not touch my sons. Ever. Again."
Hell, another relative? Their mother? Benn glances over at Shamrock, see if this is something that came back to bite him in the future, but he looks as shocked as everyone else. Maybe even more, with how pale he is.
The maybe mother- She levels her naginata at the Knights. At certain silver haired man in particular.
If this is after the shit that goes down that results in Bonney, then it probably goes something like this:
Rainmaker: I'm going to kill that Celestial Dragon for you.
Ginny: Oh you don't have to.
Rainmaker: No, I'm gonna.
More seriously, a lot of the Revolutionaries who are ex-slaves would most likely be theorizing that the Rainmaker must be an ex-slave as well because she's using Zaza Imagery which is very specifically a Celestial Dragon Fear.
More than a few would be cheering on her rampage. The smarter and more reasonable individuals would realize that her murdering of Celestial Dragons just makes it more difficult for the RA to do what they're doing, and would like to get the Rainmaker under the umbrella somehow.
What's if: dragon couldn't save his son(luffy) when he escaped with shanks.
How do you think Luffy's life will change? We knew before he met shanks he was very lonely and even after eat the devil fruit he admit after he feels more happier than before.
How imu gonna manipulate his son, to bring back his beloved.
First of all, any world where Imu raises Luffy from the start is going to make a Luffy that looks very different from canon Luffy and that makes me sad. :( So sad. Super duper sad.
Second, Dragon is more likely to throw himself off of a cliff than get separated from a baby Luffy in that personal hell, seeing how he outright says that Luffy is his greatest weakness in canon.
But let's do a thought experiment. Shift things around a bit.
Let's say, Dragon gets away with Luffy. Luffy goes to Garp, goes to Dawn Island, becomes no longer baby. Dragon goes on to do Revolutionary stuff, staring wistfully off at the East here and there.
Then somehow, somewhen, the secret of Luffy gets up to Imu level. Time to grab the bait baby!
But hm. No Beloved. Also, very difficult to get a hold of said Beloved, when he keeps running from the God Knights and other Imu messengers. Grr. Alright, just the offspring, until Imu can finally pin Beloved down properly. The offspring that stays in the palace, because no way Imu is risking losing that.
A young Luffy is Lonely. He's also highly empathetic. Like canon Luffy is definitely selfish, and I think that Luffy as a Celestial Dragon would be more so, but in this case, it's limited by the empathetic qualities of "seeing other people get hurt makes me feel bad." Like baby Luffy was an angry little kid, so I see him end up hurting people as a result of that, but hurting people doesn't make the loneliness go away.
Also he can pick up that most people are afraid to be around him. That also feels Bad. And telling Imu/Parent/whatever Imu demands to be used doesn't fix that problem, it only makes it worse. So, lonely. Luffy is Lonely.
He also likes stories. This is something Imu actively encourages, Imu likes stories too! Stories of the outside world wouldn't be banned or anything, it's merely telling Imu's child about the world Imu rules over, and is the child's too.
But Luffy is Luffy. Luffy hears these stories and thinks, "I want that." Or wants the chance to meet the people in those stories. More selfish, he's going to act. More aware that telling Imu doesn't get him what he most want, he keeps it secret in his Luffy way of proclaiming he's going to see the world and Imu patting him on the head, saying "when you're older."
Luffy gets into something. Luffy gets into the world below. Oh boy.
Two paths that would be fun to take:
Ends up on Dawn Island. Ends up around Ace and Sabo, whoops. Luffy comes off of clueless but also young enough that Ace just rolls his eyes and goes, "how stupid are you" but Sabo is more familiar with some of the holes that he personally had to deal with as a former noble and thinks "wait, did some noble kid get lost out here? Well he doesn't want to go back, so whatever."
SHANKS. He ends up among Shanks and his crew and the very fun situation of them having to fight off the God Knights like Roger and his crew did for Shanks is a possibility.
Either way Luffy has fun exploring the world as a small but strangely durable child while Imu is losing mu's mind AGAIN. But moreso because Imu is actually attached to the child this time as more than just Beloved bait.
@sroloc--elbisivni @triscribe Thoughts to add? Mostly because the question is built off of your AU's defined canon, hah.
not terrible many thoughts because i am in agreement with you that a world where Imu raises Luffy results in someone who just. Isn't Luffy Anymore, and that's too sad for me to contemplate. I think one of the biggest changes I could see coming out of Luffy in the thought experiment you outline is a guy who is just as creative about how he wants to approach the things he wants as canon but is more likely to be SNEAKY about it, which. F for respects to whoever has to deal with him then. i do love in scenario 1 you pitch the element of 'sabo seeing someone he's pretty sure is a fellow runaway noble kid Not Going Back'.
In twenty-one years, will you say something similar to someone who thinks the Sequels are terrible?
I have no idea what horrors will Lucasfilm inflict to us in the dark future, but I really believe that the sequels will age much poorly than the prequels simply because they don't really add much of anything to Star Wars. There's nothing memorable about them.
The Prequels were *bad* movies (I enjoy them but the dialogue is terrible and there are many other things that just don't work) but they expanded the Star Wars universe incredibly. We saw the capital of the Galaxy!!! We saw how the Republic worked (and didn't), we saw the Jedi at its peak, we saw warfare in a scale never seen before, we saw worlds and aliens and different aesthetics and themes. They also gave us characters like Anakin, Padmé, Obi-Wan, even Ahsoka and Darth Maul if you kept up with the animated shows that enhanced them. Even if you think that the prequels are bad movies, they GAVE a lot
The Sequels on the other hand, TOOK AWAY things from the universe. They took away the character arcs of the heroes of the main trilogy. They returned to the old Rebels vs. Empire playbook, Jakku is Tatooine, the rebels have bases in forested planets, everything is the same. There were a couple original things but they were buried into the play it safe soft reboot crap. They even retreated their own plot points which weren't even that original to begin with.
This is why I think that the Sequels will be poorly considered in the future. Not all of new Star Wars, I think the Mandalorian, despite all, will have a good legacy, same with Andor and other things. But I think the more time goes on the less people will be willing to redeem the Sequels. And this is only from the lore perspective, the messy production and how they treated beloved actors and characters will only make their legacy worse.
Hi i wanted to say your Dragon x Imu Au's are really Awesome.
So a How did the 5 (Elders) God's react as Imu choose Dragon as (His) Warlock in the Warlock Patron Au?
Aw thanks! I'm happy to hear people are enjoying them.
Well, at first the five Elders were pretty concerned that one of them might be replaced, because they all started out on their own path to Godhood/Power by warlock-type bargains.
That concern went away pretty quick after seeing their Lord actually interact with Dragon, because the assumption then became (correctly) "Oh our King is too possessive of this new toy to ever even consider raising him up to actual Godhood because that would mean losing control of said toy."
Like Imu definitely wants to make Dragon immortal, but in the sense that said immortality is always tied to Imu. Like those gods/powerful beings/spirits in real life mythology that are only remembered for being lovers of more powerful beings.
Monkey D. Dragon decides to backtrack to Ohara, not very long after he leaves it.
Dr. Vegapunk will no longer be there, having taken his leave about the same time Dragon did, but that will not be an issue. He'll look the ruins over one last time, mourn openly, before he must continue with his mission.
He intends to do this alone, like he intended to the first time sailing to Ohara.
But perhaps it says something about the world, or fate, or just the nature of things, that he isn't alone this time either.
Because when he backtracks to the monument created for the scholars, he finds someone sitting in front of it. A person with bright red hair, entangled in a multi-layered braid.
The head that hair hangs off of turns towards him, revealing the face of a woman. A woman with water dripping down from her eyes, more like the marks of heavily drenched mascara than tearstains. The color of her eyes is dark, almost black. Different from- before. Before?
Yes. He knows her. He knows this face. It's haunted him across countless nights, as one of the first people he ever failed. A woman whose name he never got. How is she here?
The mother of Shamrock and Shanks.
Unknowing of the thoughts whirling through his mind at this moment, the woman blinks at him. "Ah, are you here to mourn as well?"
She gestures to the earth next to her. "Take a seat."
Carefully he settles down. There's a saucer set in front of the monument, he notices, and its match resting in the woman's hand. Both filled with sake. But the woman makes no move to drink hers.
"I learned more about my Fruit from this island, you know?" she says abruptly. "What kind of history was behind it, what people were afraid of it..." Her free hand taps at a wide bamboo hat leaning up against her leg. "Couldn't have done it anywhere else."
That hat...he knows that from somewhere too. A wanted poster. The Rainmaker. So she survived God Valley and became a pirate, to hunt those who wronged her. Dragon can't say he blames her.
"Who're here for, stranger?"
His throat works. He shakes his head, saying, simply-
"I'm sorry."
"Hm?" She turns more directly towards him, and that shade of red in her hair is so bright and the same as-
"I failed you. At God Valley."
"At God-" She stops, jerking her body towards him, peering at his face. "You're that Marine! The Marine I asked for help, with my sons!"
"Yes. And..." Dragon's shoulders hunch, he bows his head. "I didn't get them away. I failed at that. I'm sorry."
"Ah, well, I failed too." Dark eyes look at him above a wry smile, the tearstains becoming more watery in appearance. "If I hadn't- well. If I hadn't done a lot of things, I wouldn't have been dying on you. Wouldn't have put too much on you."
"It wasn't your fault, you were trying your best."
"If you can say that to me..." Her fingers tap about her saucer. "Then I'll say the same to you: it wasn't your fault."
He nods, but says nothing. Because he'll never believe that for as long as he lives, and by the way she smiles, dry and flat, he knows it'll be the same for her.
"So what's your name anyway?"
"Monkey D. Dragon. Yours?"
She turns, lifting her eyes at the monument. "Magnolia. Just Magnolia."
He already knows what he'll see: nothing, when he opens the door.
He lays down on his bunk, keeping his eyes closed. If he keeps them closed, he won't see his mother walk into the room with laundry on her hip. He won't see his childhood friends shoving each other and laughing.
He doesn't hear them because they're not there.
Nothing is. Not anymore.
(The tapping and visions go away when Miryam Awakens Celeste for him.)
i think we should be ridiculing them more for this. you don't get to try and go all "queer website" when your staff likes to go on nuking sprees targeting the trans fem users
would be remiss not to mention that the rainbow notably straight up just removed the trans flag colors from it. like they’re gone. it’s the progress flag minus the trans flag colors.
so like. the person above who made the claim that they left out the trans flag is just wrong. i don't think they were necessarily lying, i did follow up to see if they addressed it at all and i saw that their reblogs in this chain have been deleted and they answered some asks about this saying that they hadn't seen the trans flag when they made that post.
however. since i have seen this post several times without any corrections. i just wanna put this here.
(source link)
so it is just. straight up untrue that there's no trans flag. i get the energy re: calling out the double standards from staff but it's really not a good look to be insisting that the trans flag has been left out and implying that this being so must be on purpose when it's. very much there.
Warlock Patron Au. Imu seems even more yandere-ish than, normaly if so i pity the fools who's cannot keep their hands of Mu's Dragon.
How would a day be in this au with Mu's Pov?
The line between a cleric and a warlock is thinner than one might think. Especially when one such as Imu is involved.
It is due to those thoughts that Imu decides: today, mu will take mu's Choice to the temple.
The Choice fights mu as he always does, silly thing. Simple enough to to squeeze at the invisible contract between them, to freeze him in place long enough for Imu to pick him up in mu's arms.
To fly him over to the main temple. Hidden within the shadows, of course. To observe. To watch.
"What doth thine eyes behold, in the temple?"
A temple full of offerings and prayers and incense to the five acceptable gods of the world.
Science and Defense, Environment, Justice, Finance, Agriculture...each god covers a different area of mortal belief. Covers all of them, quite usefully.
"Five gods...but you're not one of them." Choice says slowly. "Does that make you less important?"
Hah, trying to make Imu angry. Mu grins, fangs bared wide.
"Mu's altar lies in the absence, mu's Choice. Each god here..." Imu gestures to the statues, the alters. "...owes their powers to mu and mu alone. Thou understandst?"
"If that's the case, what do you get out of it?"
Clever question.
Imu leans closer, wrapping mu's tail about Choice's legs. Pulling him closer, tight against Imu. So he can feel mu's desire pressing up into him.
"To pay off thy debts, there lies only one currency for those of power."
He knows. Of course he knows, foolish Choice who has spent so much of his time circumventing bargains for the weak as part of his rebellion.
"Souls."
"Yes. All of them. All who doth kneel at the altars."
"Their followers didn't agree to that."
Imu tilts mu's horned head. Why should that matter? "But they hath picked their gods and their gods agreed for them. Mu is paid, nonetheless."
"I didn't kneel." Choice pushes at Imu, stepping in a brush of mist out of mu's hold. Mu allows it, just this once.
"But thou didst once, mu's Choice." A clawed hand gestures at the altar in question, marked with swords and scales and seagulls. "At the altar of Justice."
A flinch. Oh, how he hates to remember those days when he served Imu's purpose with the rest of the sheep. Like there is a better purpose for said sheep than that.
(Than to have their throats cut, for the blood and meat to go upon Imu's table.)
"Not anymore."
Yes. A good thing. Imu would hate having to flay Warcury for daring to have any kind of jurisdiction over mu's Choice.
Mu hums, eyes flickering about the temple. Empty, not unsurprising considering the weight Imu pressed on it earlier. The priests would have taken it as a sign from their gods to leave it be for holy things to be done in the absence of men.
And they're not wrong. It is a sign from God. Just the most important one.
Oh, is the Choice trying to get away, trying to vanish into the shadows while Imu is seemingly distracted? Wrong choice.
"The difference between a cleric and a warlock, my love, is this..." Imu's red eyes draw close to dark ones, a clawed hand wrapping about a wrist. "A cleric chooses their god. But a warlock..."
Imu's other hand touches the Choice's face, resting near his mouth.
"Thy god chosest thee."
The Choice bites. It means nothing, blood flooding into him. Might even better for what Imu plans to do next, laying him down on the nearest altar. Knocking some of the offerings off in the process, but who cares? This is Imu's temple, through and through. Pinning him flat, Imu smiles down at mu's Choice.
And it is there, upon the altar of Justice, that Imu fucks Dragon.
