#witt and witticism

[nvzblartdump]

After seven years, I finally got the prologue + first chapter of the Luck of the Draw rewrite up (ffnet + ao3), with the Witt and Witticism rewrite cooking to be posted next month. The current plan is for Story L is to be a short run fic (plan is 9 chapters, but it might flex higher or lower depending on certain factors) that dovetails into Witt and Redux when it's time.

[miki-13]

My favorite One Piece Self Inserts/Self Insert Original Characters, from top to bottom:

Amano/Krut Hanley from Hanley- https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5123221/1/Hanley

Mercy D. Witt from Witt and Witticism+ Shuffle Odessey - https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9839263/1/Witt-And-Witticism as well as https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13783904/1/Shuffle-Odyssey

Jones from Twelve Red Lines- https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13167711/1/Twelve-Red-Lines

Jeremiah Cross+ Soundbite the Transponder Snail from This Bites! - https://archiveofourown.org/works/4833515/chapters/11070479?view_adult=true

[miki-13]

@nvzblgrrl​

Those are all very good points.

Witt wanting to be special and then getting a power that is one of a kind wouldn’t be good for rewarding that outlook... and I appreciate the dark, dark irony of Witt being stuck permanently smiling+ laughing.

Also, not ten minutes after I asked that (and was at work for the next eight hours), did another fruit idea for Witt occur to me that would not only allow him to heal, but would at first look like a power that Witt wouldn’t think was useful or suit what he wanted:

The Nao Nao no Mi, or in English, The Mend-Mend Fruit.

Nao short for “Naosu”, one of the words for “Mend” in Japanese, and it also means “Cure, Fix, Correct, Repair, Heal.” At first, its only abilities seem to be the cantrip Mending.

I can see Witt being absolutely frustrated with this fruit, seeing it as not very impressive and only useful for fixing and sewing and patching (”IF I WANTED TO SPAM MENDING I WOULD HAVE CHOSEN ARTIFICER FOR DND!”) and seeing it, similar to medical work, as something that would more suit support which he very much does not want to be.

It would only be through time and practice and being put through the emotional wringer+ forced out of his comfort zone that Witt would actually see the full potential of his fruit. His skill with it levels up along with his character development, essentially.

What do you think?

If Witt were to ever get a devil fruit, what would it be? Does more than one type suit him? (I personally imagine him getting a power he doesn't think suits him, possibly one that amplifies his medical prowess or gives him a heal beam)

Honestly, I think that as far as Witt and Devil Fruits go... I probably wouldn't give him one at this point. It plays a little too much to his desire to be important.Either the Samu Samu no Mi or the Gero Gero no Mi No, I'm just being silly.

If I did give him one that wasn't chosen by the gods of random numbers or meant to be a deliberate slap in his face, it'd probably be the Kopi Kopi no Mi from the 2012 Premier show. It's flexible and easily overpowerful, but it does neatly sum up Witt's personality at the start - he's a copycat who steals other people's bits on a whim but simply doesn't have the experience or dedication to surpass the originals.

Giving Witt a power that would be primarily good or, worse, only good for healing would just see him refuse to use it except as a cheap 'heal' hack. He wouldn't see it as a 'sign' that he needed to shift priorities - he'd just exploit it to continue his own thing and apply it to the others in the group casually - probably never seeing it more as just something that needs to be done. It'd take a real crisis for him to acknowledge its importance and I honestly think that would mean him actually failing to heal someone who only he could have fixed. A fruit that doesn't have an obvious healing ability would work out better - something flexible that Witt would manage to pull healing applications out of in an emergency which would help impress the weight of that ability and how he should use it responsibly instead of as an easy way to 'regain HP' in the middle of a battle. Then, as he shifts priorities, he'd actually recognize that as an area he can focus on, rather than a 'chore' he's stuck with.

Honestly, I think the best fruit to stick Witt would be is a SMILE. Not a good one - one of the broken ones. I think it'd be darkly ironic for the jokester to gamble on potentially getting a power (finally) and lose, getting stuck with a permanent grin on his face for his troubles.

[xxxenoxxx]

wit (n.)

"mental capacity," Old English wit, witt, more commonly gewit "understanding, intellect, sense; knowledge, consciousness, conscience," from Proto-Germanic *wit- (source also of Old Saxon wit, Old Norse vit, Danish vid, Swedish vett, Old Frisian wit, Old High German wizzi "knowledge, understanding, intelligence, mind," German Witz "wit, witticism, joke," Gothic unwiti "ignorance"), from PIE root *weid- "to see," metaphorically "to know." Related to Old English witan "to know" (source of wit (v.)).

Meaning "ability to connect ideas and express them in an amusing way" is first recorded 1540s; that of "person of wit or learning" is from late 15c. For nuances of usage, see humor (n.). Witjar was old slang (18c.) for "head, skull." Witling (1690s) was "a pretender to wit."

via https://www.etymonline.com/word/wit

[miki-13]

Benjamin Franklin Hawkeye Pierce is not just Pansexual+ Panromantic, he is a Pansexual+Panromantic Disaster!

Big thanks to @nvzblgrrl for being the one who inspired me to start watching the series proper, as they based their One Piece OC Mercy D. Witt on him, and Witt and Witticism was the first SI One Piece fic I read that really stuck with me.

He might be a fictional character from over seventy years ago and I am a flesh and blood person IRL, but I would 1,000% let Hawkeye Pierce bear my children =v=

[rotcivnasrab]

“When the Moon 🌝 meets your

eye 👁 like a big pizza pie...🍕

that’s pepperoni.”

—rotcivnasrab

Game - Set - Match...

Don’t feel poorly Ed...this was child’s play... bigger and better folks have fallen to the witt and witticism of...”the rotcivnasrab.”

“For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams”

— Edgar Allan Poe

[nvzblgrrl]

WAIT YOU WROTE WITT AND WITTICISM?? I read that fic as it was being published, then followed you last year having no idea you were the same author!! It’s so cool to see how you’ve revamped the character!

Haha, yeah that was my big thing back in 2013. I still don’t quite get how it got so popular, but it got me a very large audience so far as the One Piece fandom was concerned. It actually pushed me to doing this revamp project, not just because I promised a rewrite back in the day, but it also recently passed a quarter of a million views and I figured that deserved a bit of effort on my part.

It was fun working with Witt again and exploring him as a more experienced writer and artist. I hope that my next attempt at working with him makes those that knew the original version happy with the direction I decided to take him.

[nvzblgrrl]

What dnd class/subclass would Witt be, and why? Would he multi-class?

Bard. Absolutely a bard. College of Satire if he managed to survive long enough to reach level 3. He'd probably multi-class into Warlock to get some better offensive options (but also for roleplay reasons).

Anyone DMing would probably have to spend an inordinate amount of time keeping him from derailing the plot, but he'd also be a good source of humor in the game and a big help to drawing anyone else into joining (since Witt would probably be the first to jump in when the offer was made).

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@Nvzblgrrl

I keep forgetting that that is part of Witt’s character, so lemme raise you this:

If Cross, Jones and/or Hanley were on the crew, Witt would be the one to attempt leaving the Strawhats at Water 7 rather than Usopp.

With Cross doing everything meta+ funny while also having the most long-reaching change among them (and having the animal sidekicks), Jones continuing to win against her/his demons while expanding the crew and their perspectives, Hanley actually having the most history with Luffy having been by his side even before Ace+Sabo and basically becoming the Queen of Pirates by proxy, along with all three helping Usopp’s confidence in their own way…

What is there left for Witt to do? And honestly, I can’t tell if he would remain away or return to the group after they leave Water 7 proper. What do you think?

Aaand now highly tempted to do a fic of all four of them in the Strawhats

(I did have an idea that in a fic where Witt and Hanley were in the same world, he would leave after Hanley’s Fiddler’s Green Arc (because his future-self kicked his ass sooner due to butterflies) and he would be captured by Baroque Works and tortured by Crocodile for info before being rescued by Sanji+Hanley.

And then Witt would find his own niche and skillset, what he can do that no one else can just like Usopp, and eventually cementing his own in the Strawhat Crew and among the SI Quartet.)

What do you think?

But in all seriousness, I want all four of these in the same fic changing the One Piece World one nail/butterfly at a time.

I'm rereading This Bites, Twelve Red Lines and Hanley once more, and am wondering: how would Witt interact with Jeremiah Cross and Jones? I can imagine that with the former, Witt could develop an inferiority complex with how much Cross has done. And with the latter, Witt is taken aback by Jones in his/her moods and mindset.

God it's been so long since I've read any of those... but I did read them. Honestly, I think the first thing that you need to have in mind is that Witt already has a certain level of inferiority complex going on - he just covers it up with and tries to drown himself in his own hype, which is mostly only working because he's too manic to fully let reality sink in until Water 7. So I think when presented with Cross and how Cross is effectively doing everything that Witt would like to be doing but to greater effect (even if there are a lot of physical consequences along the way) would shake him a lot. I mean, Witt can't even edge Cross out on being the 'meta funny guy' because Cross and Soundbite bring people into the jokes rather than semi-intentionally leave them on the outside of understanding like Witt does. With Jones... Witt would probably be presented with an opposite but equal situation - that Jones is basically what Witt is when his veneer of confidence cracks, except Jones, again like Cross, is more competent and effective than Witt is. The only possible area that Witt could be considered ahead of Jones is that his self-destructive tendencies come from not taking the setting seriously until a good way through the Grand Line rather than being an active depression symptom.

Honestly, in terms of bringing something to the Straw Hats, both Jones and Cross are infinitely better crewmates than Witt is - mostly because Witt is bad at being a team player and has a way of pushing people way with his behavior rather than making them like him - in rereading the original Witt and Witticism, I'm not sure if he would have been considered a friend by any of the other Straw Hats at all because he spent so much time messing with them, apart from Brook and Luffy. Working on that is something that's a definite focal point for the rewrites.

[nvzblgrrl]

Just finished episode 1 of M.A.S.H and my god, I can see where you got Witt's characteristics from ^__^ In all seriousness, I had a blast watching and am excited to see more of the series.

Haha, yeah it's a good series - it tends to get more serious as you go along, but it's well worth the watch. I grew up with the reruns so that being a series to which I held a great affect made it easy to weave into Witt - though maybe it wasn't so much 'weaving' as it was 'throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what would stick'. I have been doing a closer study of Hawkeye to help with working on Witt's development though.

[nvzblgrrl]

When I saw your stories had updated, I was really excited. I remember my One Piece phase, which included reading a lot of SI! One Piece, and yours was my favorite alongside Hanley, This Bites! and Twelve Red Lines. (I won't lie, I've always wondered how Witt would react to being Self Inserted into Hanley and him reacting to Luffy being a married man... would probably break his mind XD) But in all seriousness, take your time and take care of yourself: I love your stories but you come first!

Thank you very much! Yeah I think Witt would blow a gasket and get very confused very quickly if there were any events outside of what he was expecting to happen in his Isekai adventure... though that’s going to be happening anyway, lmao. Honestly, depending on Witt’s fanfic reading habits, he might have come across Hanley (the story) and even enjoyed it, seeing as I’m giving all the SI-OC styled characters specific years as to when they left the ‘Real World’ (Witt’s is 2013 on the same day his fic was first published).

[miki-13]

@nvzblgrrl​

Gonna be honest, tempted to start watching the series just from this clip XD

Sooo how would one put this into text...

“HYAHYAHYAHYAHAAHAAAA!” 

Or

“HYAKHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!”

Or

“AHYAKHYAKHYAKHYAKHYAKHYAAAAAA!”

I also now see where you got Witt’s characterization from. I will watch the series for that alone.

Does Witt have a unique One Piece Laugh? If so, what is it?

In his original story, he didn't (which was a dreadful under-utilization of that device, and the descriptions of his laugh in his bio then didn't line up with how it was used), but the current plan is trying to figure out how to phonetically capture a sort of hyena cackle.(specifically, I'm trying to recreate Hawkeye's cackle from MASH).

[nvzblgrrl]

I'm rereading This Bites, Twelve Red Lines and Hanley once more, and am wondering: how would Witt interact with Jeremiah Cross and Jones? I can imagine that with the former, Witt could develop an inferiority complex with how much Cross has done. And with the latter, Witt is taken aback by Jones in his/her moods and mindset.

God it's been so long since I've read any of those... but I did read them. Honestly, I think the first thing that you need to have in mind is that Witt already has a certain level of inferiority complex going on - he just covers it up with and tries to drown himself in his own hype, which is mostly only working because he's too manic to fully let reality sink in until Water 7. So I think when presented with Cross and how Cross is effectively doing everything that Witt would like to be doing but to greater effect (even if there are a lot of physical consequences along the way) would shake him a lot. I mean, Witt can't even edge Cross out on being the 'meta funny guy' because Cross and Soundbite bring people into the jokes rather than semi-intentionally leave them on the outside of understanding like Witt does. With Jones... Witt would probably be presented with an opposite but equal situation - that Jones is basically what Witt is when his veneer of confidence cracks, except Jones, again like Cross, is more competent and effective than Witt is. The only possible area that Witt could be considered ahead of Jones is that his self-destructive tendencies come from not taking the setting seriously until a good way through the Grand Line rather than being an active depression symptom.

Honestly, in terms of bringing something to the Straw Hats, both Jones and Cross are infinitely better crewmates than Witt is - mostly because Witt is bad at being a team player and has a way of pushing people way with his behavior rather than making them like him - in rereading the original Witt and Witticism, I'm not sure if he would have been considered a friend by any of the other Straw Hats at all because he spent so much time messing with them, apart from Brook and Luffy. Working on that is something that's a definite focal point for the rewrites.

[nvzblgrrl]

If Witt were to ever get a devil fruit, what would it be? Does more than one type suit him? (I personally imagine him getting a power he doesn't think suits him, possibly one that amplifies his medical prowess or gives him a heal beam)

Honestly, I think that as far as Witt and Devil Fruits go... I probably wouldn't give him one at this point. It plays a little too much to his desire to be important. Either the Samu Samu no Mi or the Gero Gero no Mi No, I'm just being silly.

If I did give him one that wasn't chosen by the gods of random numbers or meant to be a deliberate slap in his face, it'd probably be the Kopi Kopi no Mi from the 2012 Premier show. It's flexible and easily overpowerful, but it does neatly sum up Witt's personality at the start - he's a copycat who steals other people's bits on a whim but simply doesn't have the experience or dedication to surpass the originals.

Giving Witt a power that would be primarily good or, worse, only good for healing would just see him refuse to use it except as a cheap 'heal' hack. He wouldn't see it as a 'sign' that he needed to shift priorities - he'd just exploit it to continue his own thing and apply it to the others in the group casually - probably never seeing it more as just something that needs to be done. It'd take a real crisis for him to acknowledge its importance and I honestly think that would mean him actually failing to heal someone who only he could have fixed. A fruit that doesn't have an obvious healing ability would work out better - something flexible that Witt would manage to pull healing applications out of in an emergency which would help impress the weight of that ability and how he should use it responsibly instead of as an easy way to 'regain HP' in the middle of a battle. Then, as he shifts priorities, he'd actually recognize that as an area he can focus on, rather than a 'chore' he's stuck with.

Honestly, I think the best fruit to stick Witt would be is a SMILE. Not a good one - one of the broken ones. I think it'd be darkly ironic for the jokester to gamble on potentially getting a power (finally) and lose, getting stuck with a permanent grin on his face for his troubles.

[miki-13]

@nvzblgrrl​

I can see Witt start to embrace healing in the SI Crossover is after Little Garden when Jones is nearly killed protecting Vivi and Cross becomes sick from accidentally inhaling muddy water. 

Beforehand, he would absolutely clash with the crew (Zoro+Sanji+Nami especially) on him being the medic on the ship because of his desire to be a front-liner fighter. He does a good job on keeping people from dying but the extent of Jones’ injuries and Cross’ illness is beyond his scope and flat-out tells the others they need to get to Drum and find a doctor there...

But due to Witt already complaining about being “relegated to healing” and trying his damnedest not to “stay on the sidelines and watch”, the crew sans Luffy and Hanley think he’s trying to put off saving their lives out of wanting to be a fighter and envy for the two doing what he wanted to do.  This would be the wake-up call Witt would need to see how the others saw him and he throws away all pretense and facade to beg them to believe what he says, as well as tossing away his schtick of being a Psychic to reveal himself so that Jones and Cross can be saved by Chopper.

Actually looking over Witt's stuff... what if he found his niche in healing, similar to Chopper? With how much the Strawhats get hurt, having two doctors/healers would do them so much good!

Witt has actually got a background in medical - as it stands in the writing, it's pretty low level, but it has been rewritten as one of his more major skills, with him being First Aid certified since a young age, learning some theoretical knowledge from his grandfather + his grandfather's friends, and was in medical school about a year before getting isekai'd. However, this isn't really enough for him to become a fully qualified doctor without further training - which can happen in both a 'Witt with the Straw Hats' story and in the Shuffle Pirates fic, which sees him brought into a crew that is very medically oriented (with a number of specialists) from very early on.His other skills are pretty mundane - he has a background in cosplay (and is an adept at sewing and crafting) and worked as a bartender (I did check the legality of a 19 year old doing so at the time when I was writing his original thing), so that's also on his 'skill sheet'.So, yes, his medical skills are definitely his best feature, skillwise, at the start.

[nvzblgrrl]

Actually looking over Witt's stuff... what if he found his niche in healing, similar to Chopper? With how much the Strawhats get hurt, having two doctors/healers would do them so much good!

Witt has actually got a background in medical - as it stands in the writing, it's pretty low level, but it has been rewritten as one of his more major skills, with him being First Aid certified since a young age, learning some theoretical knowledge from his grandfather + his grandfather's friends, and was in medical school about a year before getting isekai'd. However, this isn't really enough for him to become a fully qualified doctor without further training - which can happen in both a 'Witt with the Straw Hats' story and in the Shuffle Pirates fic, which sees him brought into a crew that is very medically oriented (with a number of specialists) from very early on. His other skills are pretty mundane - he has a background in cosplay (and is an adept at sewing and crafting) and worked as a bartender (I did check the legality of a 19 year old doing so at the time when I was writing his original thing), so that's also on his 'skill sheet'. So, yes, his medical skills are definitely his best feature, skillwise, at the start.