#LORE. ODA.

[bellsliturgy]

i like to think that at some point in his life as hanako’s bodyguard oda did the Necromorph Thing(tm) where he got his mantis blades stuck through 2 closed automatic/elevator doors and pried them open and it was very scary and the ppl he was pursuing screamed

[dentdechien]

The coolest uncle in the world

[ascesabo]

currently up and thinking about how buggy lore gets more and more painful the longer you think about it. like. i could talk about this stupid clown for AGES. he makes his clown-ness his entire personality but it's so painfully clear he doesn't have a single ounce of joy or whimsy left in his little chop-chop body. he's a full-blown hater!! he gave up on his dreams because he wanted his best friend, who he wholeheartedly believed shone brighter than he ever could, to reach it for the both of them!! he probably hasn't known genuine happiness since he broke up with shanks in the rain!! his beef with luffy escalated tenfold the moment he saw the hat!! he stayed in the east blue for years when he had a whole map and probably knew the way back into the grand line!! he loves flashiness and attention but hasn't ever uttered a word about growing up with the roger pirates or being the childhood friend of one of the four emperors!!! this clown has spent his whole life yearning for something that will never return!!!! he has a big red clown nose!!! every bad thing that has ever happened to him was because he wanted so badly to be loved!!!

[rosalinesurvived]

The way that abilities are percieved in Bungou stray dogs is so facinating to me because its clear that they’re painted by people in a very negative light, you can even imply that its considered shameful to have one.

That is so intriguing. The war and the ability users in it caused other gifted people to realise they’d be seen as a threat. It effected everyone, and still does by the main timeline of bsd. You can understand why the Port Mafia went off the rails, because they had more skill users joining them. It makes the Agency’s dynamic so much more serious, if that’s the only place where they can feel safe using their gifts.

[badly-drawn-doflamingo]

???? What the fuck kind of lore drop is this

I don’t remember this in the manga, other than the off mention during his “I am Brook” speech, (joining the crew with his bounty and such)

I wonder when Oda will come back to this..

TRANSCRIPTION

Ryuma, standing before Brook: “Now tell me, what part of that retched excuse for a body would you like me to severe with my ‘Arrow Notch Slash?’

Brook, with clear anger rising: “Shut up.. you DON’T KNOW THE FIRST THING ABOUT THAT TECHNIQUE. YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO EVEN SPEAK ITS NAME.”

Brook, now panting: “I use to serve in my kingdom’s raider squad. The quick draw attack I was most skilled was originally called ‘The Requiem la Banderole’ however my cowards in arms renamed it after my sword fighting skills.

[moonpaw]

Fighting DEMONS rn trying not to get invested in one piece to figure out wtf you're posting about!!!!

come here cyber.... we have this thang

‎

[vulpeculaque]

little messy concept for what I imagine queen Lili looked like :p might revisit later hehe

[beanghostprincess]

I look barley through your shuggy rhaenicent ask because I don’t want to spoil myself but can you spoil me this much

Is shuggy really that deep? I kinda thought all of shanks ships are you know a little bit basic? Because shanks is not really a character to me. Does that change? Does shanks finally have something more to do? I’m in the middle of manga but you can vaguely spoil me this

Shanks is definitely a character with deep bonds!!! I know he doesn't seem like one and he's basically used as a mentor and figure for Luffy's character, but Shanks himself has a background and I honestly believe his relationship with Buggy to be pretty damn deep.

This has nothing to do with you, anon, since you aren't caught up!! But you just made me remember something and like-- I honestly can't understand why some people don't consider Shuggy's dynamic as something deep in canon. Like it is clear they had a deep bond and it is not hard to read between the lines to understand their characters and importance. A lot of people have told me they don't get Shuggy because "it is not that deep" but I truly can't see how it isn't deep.

Anyway!!! It is not much, anon, buuuuut we do get some more of Shanks and Buggy's story!! And it adds a lot to their characters, I think!!!

[autumnslance]

The Unsundered and Tempering

There's apparently some kinda post going around ruffling jimmies about the Ascians versus the Ancients, with extreme assumptions about a society we see precious little of ourselves in game and mostly get informed of by people still grieving it millennia later.

Most of them antagonists, that like many other antagonists and allies, folks seem to want to take at face value for a lot of what they say, while often ignoring what they do and how, while speaking.

This is something I have noticed among fandom and roleplayers for decades, so it's nothing new, but there's a lot of times the text of any situation is making it clear that even if a character isn't outright lying--even thinks they are being "honest"--that is not necessarily the case.

It also comes back to making sure one is using all the available information--goodness knows I've made a fool of myself before by missing scenes or text that did explain someone's position on lore and characters!

Regardless of how one feels about certain plot points, storylines, or characters, they all inform each other in canon. Different characters say different things at different times in different company. A scene from two expansions ago may inform a new patch cutscene. Actions may contradict words. It all works together.

For an example, since it's come up elsewhere, I've had doubts about how Tempered the Unsundered were from the moment Emet-Selch claimed it, due to one of the last scenes in ARR, cutscene #5 in "Before the Dawn" where we see Lahabrea and Elidibus speak just before Urianger arrives in response to the Emissary's request for a meeting:

Lahabrea: The earth is fertile, and the seeds well sown. By my will, they shall reap salvation unlike any the world has known. Elidibus: By His will. Lahabrea: …By His will.

The Ascians in ARR and HW spend a lot of time telling the WoL about their One True God. Here though, in a moment of privacy before the Archon's arrival, Elidibus has to remind Lahabrea to check his ego as his actions are for Zodiark, not himself.

This is an early indication, alongside Nabriales's actions in the previous patch quests, that not everyone's on the same page in regards to the Ascian agenda. Nor is Zodiark's hold on each red mask absolute--even the ones initially at His summoning.

EDIT: Not to mention Fandaniel's actions in their entirety in Shadowbringers and Endwalker; killing one's god to usher in the end of the world is not the act of a tempered man!

Further doubt is placed on Emet-Selch's claim by Tiamat. We get more of her situation in the Shadowbringers patches, in the "Righteous Indignation" cutscene:

Tiamat: Recall, mortals, that it was I who did first summon my beloved, praying with all my being to bring him forth. You who contend with eikons cannot well be ignorant of the consequence. Alphinaud: …You too were exposed to his influence. That you are yet in possession of your own will is testament to the indomitable strength of your soul. Alphinaud: But were you to meet with Bahamut again, you fear you might succumb. Tiamat: Indeed. Ask the dragonslayer, and he will tell thee the power we of the first brood wield. Were I to lose myself to the eikon's influence, all would pay the price. Tiamat: But it is of little matter. For even had I the strength to resist, I yet lack the strength to break my shackles. This prison shall be my tomb. Alisaie: On the matter of Bahamut's influence, at least, I believe we can be of some assistance. Alisaie: If you're afraid of being enthralled, don't be─we have a cure. And while we've never tried it on one such as you, its basic principles are universal. Tiamat: Speakest thou in earnest? Alphinaud: There is no future for those bound to the past. Alphinaud: That you committed a terrible sin, I do not dispute. But if you feel remorse, you may yet make amends. We offer you that chance. Take it, or you will forever remain a prisoner, not of these cruel shackles, but of your own guilt. Tiamat: A chance to make amends… To lay Bahamut's memory to rest… Tiamat: When our own star faced annihilation, Hydaelyn granted us sanctuary. And now your foes would bring about Her destruction. This I cannot allow. For the debt I owe to Hydaelyn, and to all who have suffered for my sins…I shall fight with you, children of man.

Tiamat is a victim of the purposefully corrupted summoning magic the Ascians distributed. Yet she is not entirely enthralled by the Bahamut she summoned; she fears she would be if she were exposed further to a primal. Tiamat, as a Great Wyrm of the First Brood, is more akin in her aetheric composition to the Unsundered than most others on Hydaelyn. She knows she is influenced by the primal she summoned, and part of her remaining bound is to protect herself and the world from that consequence.

And then she chooses the cure and to move forward with her life, when given the option. As do other enthralled figures among the tribes when granted the option.

While there wasn't yet a cure when still fighting the Unsundered, entreaties to end their crusade and move forward fell on deaf ears--but I doubt very much it was due to Zodiark's influence entirely, and more their own stubborness after having clung to this course for ages.

The first cutscene of "Unto the Heavens" in Endwalker presents finally the intersection of original creation magic and modern summoning, as preparations are made to board the Ragnarok:

Livingway: You've done a fine job of readying the Ragnarok, but for it to take flight, we'll of course need the power of the Mothercrystal. Livingway: Given its immense size, however, transporting it would be an absolute logistical nightmare. Not to mention we'd need to shatter it into tiny shards for feeding to the engines. Livingway: But a brilliant idea came to me: we convert the crystal's energy into forms that can transport themselves! Urianger: Thou wouldst employ summoning…or should I say its precursor─creation magicks. Thancred: Care to explain for our benefit? Urianger: As you may have witnessed at Bestways Burrow, the Loporrits are capable of creation magicks, which they use to shape the moon's environment. Urianger: Yet simple though they make it seem, 'tis a highly advanced and exacting art. To perform it correctly requireth that the wielder holdeth the object in his mind's eye in clearest detail. Alphinaud: Hence the ancients' meticulous management of concepts. Urianger: Drawing upon this art, the Ascians conceived of summoning as we know it. Urianger: A derivative that replaceth the complexity of concepts with the simplicity of zealotry to make manifest a creation. Y'shtola: I see… By combining the Loporrits' magicks and the tribes' faith, we convert the Mothercrystal into primals of purer form and greater obedience. Y'shtola: Summoning as it was intended, one might say. Livingway: Indeed, indeed! Livingway: While Hydaelyn gave us the ability to use creation magicks, She forbade us from using it to make anything possessed of a soul─or similar. Livingway: She didn't say anything about fulfilling the desires of others, though. So! Borrowing our friends' faith, we'll create deities using the Mothercrystal's power, and send them to the Ragnarok! Alisaie: Am I the only one here concerned about the risk of being turned into a tempered minion? Livingway: Oh, right, I was getting to that… From what I've read in Sharlayan tomes, it appears the Ascians incorporated an additional nasty element into their summoning method: the fervent desire to assimilate others into one's belief. Livingway: Beings thus created are instilled with the selfsame desire, and use their powers to enthrall people─starting with the summoner. Livingway: In contrast, our creation magicks─the original and the best, accept no substitutes─don't incorporate any of that rubbish, so there's no risk of tempering. I mean, if the being was on the scale of Zodiark, you might feel a little “tug”…but I think we'll be safe enough.

From what we get here, summoning is quite obviously an offshoot of the original creation energies of the Ancients, but twisted by the thinness of the sundered mortals' aether and using faith and collected aether as a substitute. The tempering part was a later, intentional addition, possibly after the Unsundered had opportunity to examine the effect of Zodiark's summoning on themselves and extrapolating that.

Now, is some of this likely retconning to explain discrepancies in how characters acted and how tempering has been used? Probably! There was supposedly a rewrite of the main Ascian/Hydaelyn/Zodiark storyline, inherited from 1.0, which Stormblood allowed the time and consideration going forward on how they wanted to resolve this long arc. There's a lot in ARR and HW that has been recontextualized to fit, though some things still stand out a bit oddly; they did as good a job as they could, especially given the many years and writers involved.

But from the more recent writings, the intention is not to excuse the Unsundereds' actions with "they were tempered." And the final proof comes from Emet-Selch in Ultima Thule in cutscene #4 of "You Are Not Alone", having been through the preliminary wash cycle of the Lifestream long enough to have had various enchantments removed from him, while yet retaining his self before that too is washed out before reincarnation:

Alisaie: You're leaving!? Emet-Selch: Of course. The encore is finished, and I will not suffer myself to live again by Hydaelyn's magick. Emet-Selch: But more than that, the future you seek is not the past we loved. That is why we fought. And why I lost. Emet-Selch: But though you defeated me, my ideals are inviolate. Invincible. Emet-Selch: Spare me your pity. I have no use for it. If you would do something for me─save our star. Emet-Selch: See this tale to a triumphant conclusion, and with elation in your hearts, bid the final curtain fall. Emet-Selch: Only then may it rise again and a new tale begin─with new parts for all to play.

Through Shadowbringers, Emet-Selch claimed to want to cooperate with the Scions, while only giving bits and pieces of carefully considered information, and moving the goal posts whenever they did prove to him they were able to pass his tests and meet his expectations. It is not until this moment where, his duty to fight finished and the fate of his beloved world in any form at stake, that he is truly honest about what he did and why.

(I may also have an analysis WIP about comparing him and The Sandman's Morpheus and that stubborn refusal to change his mind and ideals, but it's slow going)

So while we mostly do have to go by what characters say, directly to WoL or to other characters in other scenes, each conversation cannot be taken in a vacuum; it is taken into account with their other conversations, with their actions, with other characters' input. And sometimes, the writers change direction, and new information will overwrite the old, even as it builds off of it.

The game is not consistent about Tempering and Summoning, though the double acts of Shadowbringers and Endwalker's story tries to clean that up. I just seriously doubt, from all the evidence, that the Unsundered were as entirely under Zodiark's thumb as say, one of Ifrit's over-hammered thralls and therefore not responsible for their choice and actions, the plans they made and came up with and clung to in stubborn guilt and grief and rage for so long they couldn't do anything else, even when presented proof of other options and chances to change or move forward.

Because another thing ShB and EW have shown us in both MSQ and in the Pandaemonium storyline, is who these men were, to become the Ascians we know, and how their own beliefs shaped them individually when faced with such loss--and how in each case, those past, pre-Zodiark selves would look at the eldritch beings they became by the Seventh era, and be horrified. Not because of any god's influence, but what they were capable of on their own.

...Well OK, Lahabrea already had a pretty good idea of what kind of monster he was capable of becoming. He also chose the worst way to handle it, and never seemed to learn from that. Elidibus and Emet-Selch though, while adamant in their beliefs, were also warped by what they chose to do and be, to where Elidibus even refused to remember his past to avoid the pain, tunneling into his duty with no wavering. Only Emet-Selch chose to remember, wallowing in it, acknowledging the monstrosity of his actions...and choosing to commit them anyway.

EDIT ADDITION: Relevant lore info directly from Banri Oda on Tempering and many other things.

[shishishi-sunny]

My thoughts of One Piece Ch. 1116:

ahem

Oh shoot oh damn oh shit OH SHIT oh no OH NO NO OH SHIT WAIT WHAT shitshitshitshit oh my gosh oh my gosh oh gos—NO NOT A BREAK

[bellsliturgy]

i feel like oda is the straightman to takemura’s chaos and takemura gets a taste of his own medicine when he’s running around doing stuff with v

[alxastrx]

When you're one of the most selfish mc who only saves people because it's part of a job you never wanted and did not get to chose or you would've died, who took your co-workers' morals and ideals because you didn't have any and desperately wanted to fit in somewhere, be it with the heroes or the villains, who's activelly haunted by one the most tragic past to have been created and suffer from a psychosis so bad (dare I say schizophrenia) that even your enemies acknowledged that you are mentally ill and objectively flawed in your judgement, never hesitated to try to kill anyone and has the most egoistic reason to be a good person but the fandom still thinks you're just a kind crybaby "I don't know what a gun is" homosexual twink.

[moongothic]

So supposedly the World Government created the Shichibukai System at the begining of the Great Pirate era, right? Roger's execution caused a massive influx of pirates to go out to the seas to try and claim One Piece, so between that and the threat of the Yonkou the World Government wanted to get things "back in balance", thus they began recruiting some of the most powerful, willing pirates to "join" their side. And so we got our funny little Warlords

If Crocodile did really set out on his funny little adventure immidiately after Roger's execution then he would've been offered the position of a Shichibukai within that first year of his pirating career, so it is actually very plausible Crocodile could be one of the true original Seven Warlords the WG picked out. But like, yeah, that leaves me wondering who the remaining six might've been. Who were the original Seven Warlords the World Government chose?

'Cause we know Hancock, Jinbei, Doflamingo and Kuma joined 13-4 years ago (respectively), so at least four of the original positions have been replaced at least once, if not more. Like for all we know the Shichibukai from the begining of the series could've been the third or fourth "generation" of Warlords

But also. We don't know when Mihawk nor Moria joined the Shichibukai. They could be people who took seats from previous Warlords like the others, or, for all we know, they could be from that original "first generation" of Shichibukai like Crocodile. They're both in the same age range (Mihawk a smidge younger than Croc and Moria a smidge older) and both were also present at Roger's execution (of course so was Doflamingo and he got his position only like 10 years ago, so being at the execution doesn't mean that much) so it is fairly plausible, they do fit the bill.

If Moria and Mihawk were from that "original generation of Shichibukai" then that would leave us with just a minimum of four "missing warlords" for Oda to reveal (and I'm sure Mr Burns, whose position went to Kuma after Ace kicked their ass, is one of them). Not that I'd mind if there were more, I just don't really need more either.

Thing is though. If Crocodile, Mihawk and Moria were all from that "first generation" of Shichibukai... Okay I know this sounds stupid as hell but as a trio, I think those three in particular could be kind of comparable to Luffy-Law-Kid, right. 'Cause you got the Crocodad, the Reasonable Swordsman, and the Angy Edgelord. Right. Like they are kind of comparable in that sense, right.

I think it'd be kind of cute. If Croc-Hawk-Moria were the Luffy-Law-Kid Disaster Trio of their era. And yeah that alone kind of makes me wish they were Warlords Together, From The Begining

[miyuskye]

A soulmate is like a best friend, but more. It's the one person in the world that knows you better than anyone else. It's someone you can carry with you forever. It's the one person who knew you and accepted you and believed in you before anyone else did, or when no one else would.

[honoura]

disclaimer: this spawned off a twitter thread i made a while back, which itself came from something i’d noticed time and again within the xiv community: the idea that photography isn’t possible there. i’ve seen this a few times, and ultimately what i felt to be the truer statement is that digital photography as we know it in our phones, no. that is not a very accessible thing. most eorzeans aren’t getting a garland ironworks tomephone.

but that doesn’t mean they aren’t taking pictures.

A Case for Eorzean Photography

In the case of our modern world, the art of capturing an image onto paper directly from life dates back to the 1820s. It was called heliography. A wikipedia article on it can be found here. Heliography came about because its inventor wished for an efficient way to reproduce lithographs, engravings, and relief prints, three different illustration styles that had existed by now for varying lengths of time, but all still in use and being the choice method for adding images to text. I’m going to give a short bit of information on each style, because they are also very likely quite prevalent.

Woodcut (Relief)

Woodcut is as its name implies -- you carve your image into a block of wood, coat the raised portions with ink, and then use it in the press. Accessible to learn, accessible to do, if you want rp flavor there’s likely illustrators in every city-state employing this for the newspapers or illustrated editions of books.

Intaglio (Engraving)

Intaglio is my favorite printmaking method for illustrations, and probably also my favorite for FF14 because it involves playing with chemicals! Let’s get the alchemist roleplayers we know something cool to do. Anyway, with intaglio you’re using acid to burn an image into a metal plate, and the deeper the etchings the darker the shadows. Great for values, great for depth, and have I mentioned you’re just being a little scientist and an artist at the same time?

Lithography

Lithography is the one you’ve seen the most, even if you aren’t 100% sure how it works. It became very popular in the late 19th and early 20th century -- if you’ve ever gawked at vintage illustrations by Mucha or Leyendecker, those are lithographs! Some of the big plates used for them are just big rocks! Miners could 100% mine up limestone slabs for this.

Anyway, back to photographs. After heliographs cracked the capture nut suddenly everyone was getting in on it. People were mixing all kinds of chemicals to capture the world as it was at a moment onto a plate of glass (or others! they liked silver too).

Physautotypes used lavender oil as its photosensitive agent. Tree resin was also popular. Both things botanists would routinely be able to harvest and crafters able to distill. I can only imagine how it smelled to make photographs with this, I hope it was nice!

About 20 years after the earliest heliograph came daguerrotypes. Made on silver plates with a copper substrate, daguerrotypes were pricy but popular -- and they had their own special camera made rather than using a camera obscura.

Daguerrotypes were also when spirit photography came into prominence.

Ambrotypes came on the heels of daguerrotypes as a cheaper alternative made with less costly materials, and was followed by their even cheaper brethren the tintypes. Bit by bit, photographs were becoming more accessible -- not always the equipment (or the supplies), but in terms of a person or group of people having a portrait made you were starting to see that become more common.

Ambrotype above, tintype below

Let it be said also that less costly materials does not mean lower quality image -- each method had its own charm. Tintypes were sturdier than ambrotypes, but both developed quicker than daguerrotypes. Ambrotypes could also have spot colors added to them!  

Albumen prints made it to paper, and until we went digital that’s where photographs stayed, on paper! And one of their key binding materials was made from eggs, beautifully common eggs.

So Where Does This Leave Eorzea?

So why did I go into this much detail, with visual examples and links to references that include their materials? Because all these materials exist already within FFXIV. Glass, plates, the types of metals used, the types of chemicals.

They’re part of crafting logs, and gathering leves, and dungeon drops. Alchemists can make these chemical components, goldsmith quests have you making lenses and other more delicate mechanisms, carpenters could easily build boxes for camera obscura (and cameras!).

Different styles of photography and different materials used for them reflect availability of the materials -- where does this character live, what are their cultural beliefs, do they travel much outside of their home region? How much money do they have?

What if using unaspected crystals creates a different effect on the plate? With the right kind of aetherial charge, don’t you think you could photograph ghosts in actuality rather than trickery? There’s a whole quest in 1.0 where an NPC sees the ghost of the city of Sil’dih -- a ghost city!

At any rate, I just think it’s neat to look at what materials exist in this game, and how things from this world may translate to that with the understanding it will not be 21st century. We have a lot of technology that’s existed longer than we sometimes recall or acknowledge -- and it’s good material! Use that stuff! Have fun with it!

[misqnon]

Parallel

Through the power of a strange new devil fruit encounter, Sanji gets turned into an anchor between universes. Zoro doesn't really get to help his crew deals with this, though, because the instant he makes contact with the cook, he's teleported right next to the man again. 

Only this time Sanji's wearing different clothes, and looking at him weird. And they aren't on the Sunny anymore. They're in some weird, gray kitchen, and Sanji's holding a weird looking piece of technology, and also looking at him like he doesn't know who the hell he is.

"Who the hell are you?" Sanji says, and it's his voice, but with an accent he doesn't recognize, and Zoro realizes something is very, very wrong.

-----

modern au sanji / canonverse zoro. because i'm insane

only posting the first short chapter here, but the rest will be on ao3 as it goes on

By the time Zoro wakes up, the invading pirate crew is already halfway unloaded onto the Sunny’s deck.

His stomach drops.

Did he fucking fall asleep on watch? 

“OI!” He shouts, voice less of a yell and more of a deep-throated growl, alerting both his own crew and the invaders. A large man in an oversized coat looks up at him with a scowl, curly black hair obscuring his face. But then he smiles. The captain, Zoro presumes.

As he does so, Sanji and Robin appear on deck, followed shortly after by Nami, Usopp, and Chopper. They all get into fighting stances within seconds, meeting head to head with crew-members already on the Sunny’s lawn, dyed dark blue in the nighttime’s dark haze.

Zoro’s still staring at the captain from the crow’s nest, the other practically daring him to come down and fight. Wasting no time, Zoro unsheathes his swords, jumping from one of the crow’s nest windows, swords gleaming the whole way down. He slams into the deck with enough force to rock the boat, causing a loud splash on its starboard side. Luffy and Franky emerge seconds later, quick to join the battle with eager grins. 

Zoro feels a bit bad for taking the captain. He usually leaves that honor for Luffy. But the guy’s pissed him off, and he feels responsible for dozing off during watch. 

Seriously, what the fuck? Zoro may love to sleep, but he takes watch seriously. He’d never endanger his crew for something as fleeting as a little shut-eye. Mistakes happen, but not to him. Not Roronoa Zoro, master of willpower and control.

He takes all that anger and shame and uses it to beat the shit out of the captain now defiling the Sunny’s deck with his presence.

But the other man is fast. And now he’s finally talking.

He jumps up to the top level of the ship, narrowly avoiding the fight behind him, where Sanji is throwing kicks at a man that looks strikingly similar to-

Wait, what? …Twins?

The man follows Zoro’s stare and gives a hearty laugh. “Whatever you’re thinking, it ain’t right.” He explains. He snaps his fingers, and Sanji suddenly stops behind him, looking uneasy.

“What the hell?” The blonde whispers to himself, looking down at his hands. He feels…wrong. Overwhelmed. Nauseous. The man the cook is fighting has stopped to, looking at him with the same grin as the man Zoro’s focused on.

“I’m Captain Morales of the Parallel Pirates.” The Captain declares.

“And so am I.” Says the man in front of Sanji, now turning to look at Zoro. He steps forward to stand beside Captain Morales (the first one, anyways) and Zoro is shaken, because even identical twins aren’t that…perfect.

It’s obvious this is some kind of devil fruit power, but Zoro isn’t in the mood for learning tonight. He just wants them dead or off his ship.

“Huh?” Usopp pipes up from somewhere to the left of him. Luffy and a few others take notice too. 

“Hey, Zoro, why’s there two of that guy!?” Luffy exclaims, slapping away some insignificant crew member.

…Now that he thinks about it, something is off about this guy’s crew, too. He glances around again, at all the faces scattered among the deck and the ship beside them, and he realizes none of them go together at all. Most pirate crews have some sort of theme, yes, but he doesn’t mean it in the way that they don’t share a similar motif. No, they look like they’ve all come from completely different worlds. 

One man wears old leather greaves, another wears a three-piece suit. One looks straight from Thriller Bark, another is dressed in nothing but silver chrome. One woman boasts a wide array of guns, while another looks slightly more Neanderthal than is excusable by old genetics. It’s a big world out there between all four seas and the Grand Line, he knows that, but this feels like…something even more than that. They feel out of place in a way he can’t place.

“Confused, aren’t you?” Says the man Sanji was fighting. The cook tries to kick him again despite the nausea, but Captain Morales the Second catches him by the leg and throws him down next to Zoro. Zoro doesn’t blink an eye.

“This is the power of the Verse-Verse Fruit.” Says the first Captain Morales.

“I don’t care what the hell your power is. Get lost, or you’ll be split into more pieces than two.” Zoro growls.

The Captains laugh. “Split?”

“No, no.”

“We’re both entirely intact. And no, we aren’t twins.”

“And I’m not a copy, either.”

“He’s me. From another world.”

“I mean, who better to have as a First Mate than another you?”

“Never have to worry about stupid decisions or insubordination. You can always trust yourself.”

“He always makes the same choices I would have made had I been there. It’s awfully convenient.”

Zoro loses track of who’s saying what at some point, but he doesn’t care. “Listen, I already told you, I don’t care about your stupid crew or your stupid powers.”

“Whaaaaat!? I do!” Luffy exclaims, apparently entranced by this guy’s…These guys’? Speech.

“Other worlds!? Like what? How?” The captain continues.

Zoro holds himself back only out of his own loyalty to Luffy. He knows the idiot wants answers, and he can’t go attacking their opponent while the two…three, are talking. 

The Morales’ laugh. “Well, you see, I have the ability to traverse other worlds. It’s how I found half my crew, if you hadn’t noticed.” Says the first captain.

“But he can also turn others into anchor points between worlds, allowing anyone who touches that anchor to travel to another world where that anchor exists.” Says the second captain.

Luffy looks completely lost, as do a few other Strawhats who are listening. 

Usopp pops his fist onto his other hand. “Oh, I think I get it! So say if Zoro existed in another universe, I could touch Zoro and travel to the other world he exists in?”

One of the Captains nods. “Exactly.”

Nami crosses her arms. “And how do they get back?” She looks concerned, scenarios swimming in her head already. 

“Well, if I’m available, of course I simply turn him into an anchor again. He touches the other world Zoro, and he returns here. If I want it that way.”

Nami doesn’t move. “And if you aren’t here?”

They both shrug. “Too bad, so sad.” They say in unison.

Nami grits her teeth. “Hey! Nobody touch anybody! Not even the crew! There’s no telling who he’s already turned into an anchor.”

They both laugh again. “Good work, girl! You’re exactly correct. One of your own is already an anchor, ready to take anyone who touches them to somewhere far, far away from here. And I won’t bring them back no matter how much you beg.”

Zoro grits his teeth. 

That’s it. He isn’t waiting any longer. He can take this guy out without touching him easy-peasy. It’s just his swords that need to make contact, after all. He puts Wado in his mouth and darts forward, demonic eyes set on the dual Captain and his First Mate, when someone stumbles to their feet behind him.

He doesn’t take stock of this, of course, he’s far too focused in the fight- but the Captain notices. He snaps his finger and someone appears in front of him like a wormhole, kicking him harshly back where he came from.

He collides with the cook behind him, Wado knocked from his mouth as the wind is knocked out of him, and before he can even realize what’s happened, he’s standing in a small, gray kitchen, with strange futuristic design completely unfamiliar to him. And before him stands the cook, only now Sanji's wearing different clothes, and looking at him weird. He holds a small flat screen, a piece of technology Zoro doesn’t recognize. The cook turns to him.

"Who the hell are you?" Sanji says, and it's his voice, but with an accent he doesn't recognize, and Zoro realizes something is very, very wrong.