The Blank Mindscape Zone

I'm an adult.

[naye-et-cetera]

"I know I can't live without help from a lot of people!" Monkey D. Luffy to Arlong, One Piece Chapter 90.

⏳3:11 | 🎵 I Need Help by Fitz and the Tantrums | 🏴‍☠️ Big nakama feels Details, download & a chance to leave me a treasured comment on AO3

[naye-et-cetera]

Here's an interesting bit of Enies Lobby lore buried in the Buster Call, Lucci vs Luffy excitement of chapter 426. Viz translated the line as: "Enies Lobby has been secure for 800 years because CP9 has watched over it for generations". If the speech bubble had been bigger, the translator might have had a chance to elaborate: Enies Lobby has been an impregnable legend ever since 800 years ago.

With what we've learned the past couple of arcs, that is very interesting I think...!

Anyway, translation nuances aside (Viz's version is not incorrect, just suffering from the meaning you can get across in kanji compared with letters) - Enies Lobby was a built by the first World Government. Or maybe even: Imu had Enies Lobby built ASAP after the Void Century. And a reminder:

There's a HOLE in the OCEAN, with a waterfall crashing endlessly down.

Down into a bottomless hole.

...even for the Grand Line, this is not normal. In fact, I'd say it's not natural.

And then there are The Gates of Justice, which are very, very big:

And somehow it's a "noon island" where the sun always shines? Even in the Aqua Laguna?? That's...not how the sun works. Even on the Grand Line. But there's definitely light there, coming from the sky.

We don't know how any of that works, but it does seem like this particular location might be connected to the cataclysm of the Void Century, when the ocean rose 200 meters for what Vegapunk can only explain as "Ancient Weapon" reasons. (Which makes me wonder: Was Impel Down originally built underwater, or did it get flooded with the rest of the world?)

Was Enies Lobby - the strange, bottomless hole endlessly swallowing the ocean - maybe even the epicenter of whatever happened?

And those giant gates... Maybe back then they weren't built that massive just to intimidate. Maybe they were built to that scale because Imu had some really, really big enemies? And either Imu wanted to send those big enemies through the big gate as a show of strength, or the big gate is the only thing left of an equally huge wall that was there to keep the big enemies out of Impel Down.

Anyway. No answers, just more questions, but wow does a reread hit different when you know more about the world!

[naye-et-cetera]

One Piece Drabble: Silence

That first night, he is wide awake. Shanks, who easily sleeps through Grand Line storms, finds no respite in this immovable stillness. He's spent nights on land before, of course, making do without the soothing rocking of the sea. But maybe not without the sound of waves. Here, he catches himself holding his breath, as if waiting for the rhythm of the ocean to fill the silence between inhalation and exhalation. It doesn't. Here, there is only a silence more deafening than he has ever heard. In the dark, alone, he aches for the noise of his ship; his crew.

[naye-et-cetera]

One Piece ficlet: Making Acquaintance

Shanks is introduced to Seaman First Class Beckman's skills with the rifle by way of it almost cracking his skull.

Impressive! And unusual, since most marines tend to prefer to use their rifles for shooting pirates, not practicing their swings on them.

Intrigued, he creates some space around the man - enough that they can talk without anything but the marine's continued attempts to bash Shank's brains in interrupting them.

"You're good," Shanks informs him, grinning.

The marine grunts, and swings at him again.

Shanks catches the blow against the hilt of his sword. "And I mean that. Good." He glances at the battle around them - his crew fighting side by side with the villagers, who are armed with nothing but pickaxes and sledgehammers and the odd frying pan, their eyes full of fury and desperation. "Better than this," he says, lowering his voice.

The dark eyes under the white cap reflect the flames of the burning village.

When they move together now, it's like a dance, with Shanks reading his opponent's every move. What he sees makes him drop his smile. "Stop that," he orders. "Letting me kill you isn't going to change anything."

"I'm not--"

Shank's lips pull back in a new grin. "Join me?" he says, and laughs at the way the marine's jaw drops.

"You're a pirate," the marine observes. Very acute fellow. Shanks likes him already.

"Yep! With a crew and a ship and all. Come on. Join us! It'll be awesome."

Shanks fends off a couple of marine nobodies, then dives in to spin his erstwhile opponent around.

They both look at the white-coated, gold-bedecked figure high up on a hill behind the lines, shouting orders.

"It'll be better than this," Shanks says, serious.

His new recruit nods, once, a slow smile spreading across his face. Then he hefts the rifle to his shoulder, and takes aim.

-fin-

I was chatting with my husband about Shanks, as you do, and said something about Benn being a former marine. As he blinked in confusion I went "...hang on, did I make that up?". Because when you've been in a fandom over two decades, bits and pieces of headcanon and speculation can get hard to tell from actual canon. And yeah. I made that up! But since we don't have a canon first meeting between these two yet... Here's my take. A fic first posted November 2009!

[invisibletinkerer]

There's this special attack that punches a huge hole in someone or something from a distance. Most recently, Gerd, Goldberg and Road use in chapter 1173 to get rid of a nightmare construct:

It's been used at least twice before in the series. The first one is, of course, when Dory and Broggy use it on the giant goldfish in chapter 129!

The second time, which I remembered just now when rewatching the Whole Cake Island arc, Big Mom uses it!

It's clearly the same attack each time, although the first kanji in the name varies. The second is always 国, meaning country or nation. None of the combos make existing words, so it's just the names of the attacks.

Dory and Broggy use 覇 (supreme), Gerd, Goldberg and Road use 轟 (roar, or being honored throughout the world), while Big Mom uses 威 (power). I don't know if it's intentional, but Big Mom's attack name is pronounced "ikoku", which, written as 異国, means "foreign country". Which seems appropriate if she's using an attack that came from the giants!

And it clearly did come from the giants! It doesn't come up in chapter 1173, but this attack is also refered to as エルバフの槍, "the spear of Elbaph".

Broggy calls it "The strongest 'spear', passed down among the giants of Elbaph".

And Big Mom calls it simply "The spear of Elbaph".

Luffy reacts to that, and rightly so - because why does Big Mom use an Elbaph attack?? The giants hate her. Who could have taught her this?

[invisibletinkerer]

In the One Piece Live Action, we see some wooden figures that Dory carved, right? One is clearly Brogy. One is Nika, which is a great easter egg. But the third was confusing.

But suddenly, watching the Whole Cake Island Arc of the anime (I hadn't watched that part of the anime before, only read the manga), I found that exact guy!

It's when Chiffon explains the marriage that Lola ran away from, which angered Big Mom so much. It would have been an alliance with the Giants...

It's that exact wooden figure, from the strange pegs on his head, the bloblike face and down to the flower in his hand!

And it's meant to be Loki. O_O

Seeing how he doesn't look like this at all when he actually shows up in the story, this OPLA easter egg is on a whole new level. XD

I had to go check what this looks like in the manga. Turns out he does look somewhat like the above in Chiffon's flashback (although it might just be her imagination?). The OPLA thing is more clearly based on the anime version, though. Also, the manga image does not do justice to the actual size difference between Loki and Lola. O_O

Mystery solved!

Although, I had completely forgotten that Loki had once tried to marry Lola! That part has not come up in the Elbaph arc at all, and knowing what we know of Loki, is seems kind of out of character for him to propose a marriage that'd put him on Big Mom's crew.

It would have been at some point after Harald's death but more than six years ago. I believe he was exiled from Elbaph and doing anti-government piracy at the time? He wouldn't have been able to bring Elbaph under Big Mom's sway even if he wanted to.

Besides, Loki is like Luffy, not wanting to serve under others. And Big Mom is not actually any more trustworthy than the world government when it comes down to it.

I'm curious about what really happened...

[invisibletinkerer]

I had some trouble with a piece of coding. A friend told me to "Just ask chatGPT about it!"

Never in my life.

I pretty much said that, which may have been taken as an overreaction. Sigh...

[manofbeskar]

under pressure x one piece (v2)

[naye-et-cetera]

Five times Zoro was tied up + one time his swords got stuck

1. Axe Hand Morgan's Cross [1/2]

OPLA season 1, episode 1

[infriga]

I did it! I finished my Trigun mmv!

The song I ended up vibing with the most surprised me, but honestly I feel like it works surprisingly well since despite the topic of the song the melancholy tone creates a great dissonance that can add a lot of extra meaning to the words.

While Vash does do plenty of drinking in the manga and 98 anime, in this video being "drunk" generally represents more of a lack of control, whether it's Vash lacking control over his powers, his emotions, or losing someone he loves and not being able to do anything about it. I had a lot of fun with this one!

[invisibletinkerer]

I've recieved half of the loot I bought at the Rudra event! (The other half is still at the mail proxy company in Japan)

It's a mix of old and new, manga and fic, and it is shiny!!

[star-light-artist]

One of my favorite Gravity Falls AUs - Ford not experiencing more than a minute while beyond the portal and coming out of it, still expecting it to be 1982.

[thatgayunoriginalbastard]

Fanfiction Jargon Study

Hey y'all! So I know I haven't posted much lately BUT college has been crazy. And related to that, for one of my classes I'm doing a study on the relationship between time within the greater fandom community and understanding of fanfiction-related jargon. Below I have the link to the survey which will just have three multiple choice questions relating to your relationship to fandom and then a list of 15 terms to define if you know them. 

Please reblog this or otherwise share the survey link with anyone you think might be interested so I can have as large of a sample size as possible for this. The form will be open until April 24th. 

Thank you all so much! 

(and yes, I will post the data when I get it all collected for all you fellow nerds)

Defining Fandom Jargon

A survey to determine the relationship between the understanding of fandom jargon and the time one has been in the fandom community

[marimbles]

underrated tumblr feature is being able to catch up to yourself on your dash. so there is an END POINT. and you can say “ah, I have reached where I left off, there is no more to see! I’ll take my leave now and come back later when there are new posts.” instead of being stuck forever in a bottomless algorithm pit digging deeper and deeper till you have to summon monumental strength to climb out

[invisibletinkerer]

Imu reveal! And most of it was as I had been expected (one of the original 20, the originator of the world government, the king of the world), but this:

能力：アクマの実

As in, this person's devil fruit ability is "Devil Fruit". What does that mean!!?

I can think of several possibilities, and all of them are mind-blowing.

[invisibletinkerer]

Basically, we had a mini-con online for the Rudra no hihou fandom. It was just like a real con, with fanmade books and merch for sale, a bunch of free handouts, and hanging out chatting with fellow fans.

Homemade character sprites are like cosplay, and we even had cosplay photoshoots! (Note that the middle Rostam+Huey is a single sprite!)

And a tea party! With cats sitting on the table!

And gathering on the moon, of course!

I (Surlent) was captured by the Rudra! (This was a fun background to play around in!)

I love everyone in this fandom and had an amazing time!!

[invisibletinkerer]

The oneline Japanese fan event for Rudra no hihou turning 30 years old is going on right now, and for another seven and a half hours (it's a 24 hour event)! You need a free PictSquare account to enter, but if you have one or can make one, feel free to enter. It's been lots of fun! Hanging with people in home made pixel art sprites and chatting in real time. I have made a Surlent sprite, but the fan with the double Rostam+Huey sprite wins. XD

It's a unique event, so I've made sure to buy one of everything up for sale. Including one fan's home-made merch, some old manga doujinshi and some new manga doujinshi and some fanfic doujinshi. I'm glad the yen is so cheap right now!

^__^