#anyways. back to the pirates

[headfullof-ideas]

All right this took me. ALL DAY. To color. And it’s not even that impressive (to me anyways) BUT, at long last- the Dark Orca Pirates in my crossover AU.

The Dark Orca is a mighty pirate ship, heralded from generation after generation of pirates roaming the seas. The ships current owners are the family of Captain Hammerhead, and his children. The Dark Orca and her crew spend most of their time at sea, searching for unsuspecting traders or fishermen out at sea, plundering them of their goods, or raiding the various sunken ships or forgotten temples that they find of their treasures. Sometimes, they even tackle the various tidal class dragons that emerge from the depths to poke around the ship. The Dark Orca was once an old armada ship, its size and military might on par with that of the Grimborn brother’s strongest ships. The crew that handles the Dark Orca, it’s sheer size and militia prospect, and the foreboding ‘ghost ship’ feel that the Dark Orca has means that most other people tend to leave her and her crew alone. However, the Nekton family with their own similar in scale ship, the Aronnax, aren’t above tussling with the Dark Orca’s pirates, especially if there’s a dragon or treasure of their ancestry home Lemuria involved. When the Dark Orca isn’t at sea, plundering it and its travelers for their treasures, she can be found at many different markets, from the markets filled with clothing stalls and food markets, to the seedier markets where underhand deals and questionable trades occur, and sometimes even at the markets frequented and run by Dragon Trappers, meant for their business. The Dark Orca’s crew have heard rumors of people riding dragons, though with the cesspool of rumors and gossip that the pirate community is, they’re not sure how genuine these rumors are. Though, with Dragon Trappers being the ones to spread most of the tales, they’re wondering if there’s any merit to the stories.

Captain Hammerhead is the head of the Dark Orca, steering it and his crew in every direction that they go. Every wreck they visit, every ship they plunder, it is all done when Hammerhead says it will be. Hammerhead is the Captain, and everything is done as he says it will be. Hammerhead is like any other pirate, obsessed with all the gold and jewels and treasure that he can get his hands on. Hammerhead however is also determined to live up to the legacy of the ship that he inherited through his father, and his father before him, and as far back as five generations before his grandfather from the Dark Orca’s original captain, Grimbeard the Ghastly himself. The Dark Orca has a fearsome and impressive reputation, and Hammerhead is determined to ensure that legacy lives on. Gold and jewels, artifacts the likes of which no one has seen, maps that entail the most exotic of lands and treasures that not just anyone can get, power and adventures that make an even bigger name of the already legendary ship that he commands. Hammerhead is determined to make sure the Dark Orca’s legend lives on, hoping that his name and that of his children will live on in the Captain’s log and diary that lives in their ships helm, and amongst the tales and legends that circulate the widespread community that the pirate trade is. Recently, Hammerhead has found a rather inconvenient annoyance in the shape of a group of children that have started making their rounds around the markets that he takes their ship to sell goods and plant stories. A group of children seemingly bearing no knowledge of the way things are run in this corner of the world, who buy supplies and other odds and ends through means of trade, using dragon scales from more than one species and more gold and jewels than children seemingly on their own should have as currency. Hammerhead is determined to figure out where these children are getting their dragon scales and jewels, though he is unaware of what exactly he may be getting himself into.

Smiling Finn is Captain Hammerhead’s eldest child. He’s not as interested in the pirate business as the rest of the Dark Orca’s crew, his dad, and his little sister. Finn wants to travel the world, and living on a pirate ship does help ease that passion. All Finn wants to do is snag a ship for himself, even if it’s a small one, and go see the world for himself, no piracy attached. Finn’s dad has named him first mate of the Dark Orca, something that Finn knows is rankling to some of the older crew members. It only makes Finn’s resolve to leave his life of piracy behind even harder, because his dad isn’t super sentimental or anything of the likes, yet he refers to Finn as his first mate with pride and boisterous passion. However, the life of a pirate isn’t all bad. Finn’s desire to see the world is satiated by seeing all the places that the Dark Orca goes, the numerous variety of dragons and the scenery of all the locations they go to incredible. Sure, the dragons they come across are usually attacking the Dark Orca, or his dad is having the crew attack them, and they’re usually stealing treasure from all the crazy places that they go to, but Finn gets to see it all! And he’s usually allowed to roam around the places they go and look at everything, so long as he brings something interesting back with him. And then there’s the Nektons, specifically their only child, a girl named Fontaine. Fontaine is sarcastic and sharp-tongued, always ready with a witty comment. She’s practically at home at the sea, and while Finn is definitely developing a bit of a crush on her that his sister Maddie canNOT know about, Finn’s also finding a friend with common ground and interests with her. Finn tells her all about their adventures, especially about how there’s this group of kids his dad is starting to try and track down, though why, Finn doesn’t know.

Mad Madeline is the youngest pirate on board the Dark Orca, and quite possibly the youngest pirate on board a large-scale pirate ship in pirate history. Madeline lives for being a pirate, she loves plundering for treasure, and testing her skills and their limits at pick-pocketing and stealing things right from under people’s noses. Madeline lives for exploring the seven seas, for braving the watery channels and the raging storms and the fierce dragons that erupt from the depths. She knows Finn’s heart isn’t with piracy and their ship and families legacy, and while she doesn’t understand it she hopes that she herself might one day get to stand at the Dark Orca’s helm and create her own legacy. Madeline listens to her dad and all the other old pirate captains and all their tales of great pirates that ruled the seas. Her favorite is of Grimbeard the Ghastly, who once steered the Dark Orca herself. But Madeline is also interested in more than old pirate stories. She loves to collect stories of ghosts and various legends, mythical creatures and sea monsters from the deepest parts of the oceans. Madeline is obsessed with dragons, specifically the Tidal Class dragons, who are like the sea beasts from the book her mother gave her as a birthday present come to life. She’ll even pretend not to be eavesdropping when the matriarch of the Nekton family tells her daughter something interesting about the dragons that come from the sea. The Nektons are infuriating, but things are always even more exciting when they’re around, and Madeline loves sneaking onto their ship to look at all the cool stuff they’ve found, and then try stealing it. Madeline was the one who first saw the kids trading dragon scales and jewels for expensive leather and clothing and tools, and she’s baffled on why they settled for mundane items such as the things they buy and trade for. She hasn’t told her dad, but she saw them trading jars of green gel, chicken eggs, exotic flowers, and even fish as well to get the items they leave the markets with, though the dragon scales and jewels and gold seemed more important to tell Hammerhead. Madeline can just tell that these kids are hiding something, because why would they be at the markets buying such weird things with such hard-to-find items? She’s determined to be the one to crack the mystery about them, looting them for all they’re worth.

The Dark Orca and the Pirates were fun to figure out and plant within the rest of the story. All the lore of the Dark Orca, and the rest of the pirate community and the Floating Market is gonna be so much fun to flesh. Does anyone else remember how the Dark Orca was made out as some terrifying myth or legend in the first episode they showed up in? And then how they just…weren’t really like that through the rest of the show? It makes sense with the way Hammerhead is in the show, but in my crossover AU? Not happening. The Dark Orca will be the terrifying legend that people who venture out into the open ocean fear and try to prepare against. People steer clear of the Dark Orca when they see her. And the realization some character, important or not, will have that they’re talking to someone that works on that ship? The pirates will be pirates and they will be competent. Though, six kids riding freaking dragons and a family of do-gooder aquanauts will still be an issue for them. But it won’t be so butt-end-of-the-joke with the pirates of the Dark Orca

[tariah23]

Oh…. Well, it’s over for Crunchyroll I guess

[eddiepeaches]

happy together <3333

[kan-be]

so I’ve had this fantasy AU in the back of my mind since 2021 and I finally decided to draw some stuff on it

[demaparbat-hp]

Any Momtara and Lu-Ten II sketches?

Just a boy and his mom a waterbender.

[turtleblogatlast]

One of the funniest parts about the whole “Leo not giving Draxum any grace” idea is that Draxum is one of the ONLY notable older men in the show that Leo isn’t willing to give a proper second chance to OR really hear out in the first place.

No seriously it’s genuinely a Thing.

[marlynnofmany]

So the Chocolate Guy, who makes god-tier desserts 24/7 ... guess what he made for Halloween, The Day Of All The Candy. Guess.

[spoiler video description:]

[video of Amaury Guichon making a giant-sized toothbrush and tube of toothpaste out of chocolate]

[sen-ya]

Sennnnnnn I don’t know if you’ve already addressed this before, but can we get a height check between the idiot captains??

Also also- I think it’s super funny that you literally made so much content you had to go and get a different website just to document it all out, that’s insane! Keep up the amazing content! Indulge your silliness!!

Two idiots over time!!

Also also, tysm that warmed my silly heart 😭❤️

[liauditore]

how many belts and buckles does she need someone save me.

[itsthatlake]

Ha! Look at you, so young and happy... where did they years go?

[theamazingmr-j]

MY BABIES ARE COMING BACK!! THE RIPTIDE PIRATES ARE COMING HOMEEEEEE!!

[cupcakeshakesnake]

Bad ending

[legend-had-it]

I am genuinely So obsessed with the idea of zoro and sanji having a separate shared bounty, like a bounty thats twice of their normal amount combined because theyre That much More of a threat to the government when theyre together

[kenzan-brainrot-mp4]

The situation between Kiryu and Majima is mostly just really depressing. But I think you kinda got at a silver lining with Majima ending the game by talking to and spending time with Kiryu in a normal way.

Majima has done everything except be upfront with Kiryu about his feelings. Instead, he does a lot of self-destructive things for Kiryu’s sake that would only devastate Kiryu if he knew the extent of what’s been going on with him (thinking of Kiryu being a mess in 5 over Majima’s “death” and then Majima nearly actually dying for Kiryu’s sake).

Majima just spending time with Kiryu in the hospital and telling him about what he’s been up to probably goes a lot further in making Kiryu happy than if he had actually shown up with a immortal elixir that he put his life at risk to get.

Yeah, looking back I wish I'd taken more time to reflect on the new, more positive development between Majima and Kiryu at the end of the scene, because as depressing as their situation as a whole is, that silver lining is genuinely really significant. I believe it really does show that their relationship is not doomed to depressing hell forever, and that is largely in part to Majima's own growth in this game.

As I touched on in another post, Majima walking away from the viewer to Kiryu’s hospital room parallels very interestingly with how Yakuza 0 ended, when Majima walked away from Makoto. In y0 silences his feelings and walks away, choosing to maintain a physical And emotional distance between them that he carries all the way to yk2 (and that he Does Not Let Go Of, even In his saga in yk2), leaving all of the self-sacrificing and self-destructive gestures but none of the actual fulfillment of the ability to just. Enjoy each others' company when the danger has finally passed.

Meanwhile in pyih you see him walking towards Kiryu in the final seconds of the game, confronting him head-on (with encouragement from Saejima), just to. Talk. No business, no "take care of x for me" no "I'm Depending on your for y", just having a normal conversation like they should've, could've done in yakuza 3, like they could've done in infinite wealth, what I wish they'd done in 5 and what they Definitely didn't do enough of in Gaiden. (And, just like what Majima and Makoto should've done too in yk2, if Majima had actually grown).

Its interesting because Majima, who's all about impulsive and grandiose gestures and actions and the need to die in a way that matters for someone else, technically didn't even "win" with his plans this time, like he did with Makoto. He didn't get to pull off his hundred-millionth self-sacrificing gesture for Kiryu. He didn't get to die valiantly fighting. A giant squid (lmao) or run back to Japan with the treasure that he dug up with his own blood sweat and tears. But he seems. Strangely okay with the aftermath, all things considered (I know I've been sticking to the word "resigned" when describing how he feels in this particular moment all this time but. What I'm getting at is that he's more okay than you may expect, considering the circumstances and the stakes at hand.)

(I want to (very abruptly lol) point out the fact that we've seen this kind of arc with Majima on a smaller scale before. Majima had a lot of the same deal in y0/4, where he pushed himself with the goal to die for Saejima for Years before his release from prison and was ready to go through with it the day of. However, this ended up being another situation where he "didn't win." What he got by the end of it wasn't Saejima claiming his title as new Tojo patriarch over his dead body, but rather (after a fight goaded on by Majima himself and some pushing by Saejima) they got to just. Talk things down. And just go back to being the bros they were before that whole mess. And Saejima's been able to be Majima's rock for the rest of the games since.

I just think someone would've benefited a Lot from taking notes. And that someone is Not Saejima.)

Like I kinda-did-kinda-didn't get to at the end of the whale post, I think the most important takeaway for Majima at the end of this game is him learning to not constantly throw himself into the fire for every person he wants to protect. Getting himself killed for Saejima and Kiryu wouldn't have made them happy. Keeping himself away from Makoto didn't make her happy, and now the ship of them being involved in each other's lives has long since sailed.

Keeping himself emotionally distant hasn't helped any of them Once, and this is why it's so important that he tries to cross some of that gap now with what is honestly his worst case of lifelong devotion yet (even if it's in a way that's small, in a way that's arguably insignificant for the emotional rift they have, even if it's just through telling some pirate tale, even if Kiryu might not know the true significance of it all even now. At least its Something. At least they just get to be. People, together. It's much more casual than anything they've had with each other for the past like 5 games, but strangely that casualness is arguably more intimate, after everything that's happened.)

Honestly this decision from Majima aligns perfectly with the admittedly cheesy (but I mean this in a loving way) ending of the main plot of pyih itself; by the end of the adventure Majima seeks not the grand impossible treasure he was originally chasing after but to rather cherish and enjoy the time he spent with the people he has come to care about over the course of the game (the photo). Such simple kinds of wishes are rare for Majima at best, but that's why it's so important he gives himself that now: the ability to just sit down and talk with the people he cherishes. That literally would've saved him so many damn times, I think. I think that's something he's desperately needed with Kiryu especially since Yakuza 3. And I think that those final moments in the last cutscene of pirate yakuza means he'll let himself indulge in it, just a little.

I really just hope that it'll be enough to give him and Kiryu some of that peace and closure that they seem to chronically lack, especially when it comes to each other. I hope it means they really can be happy with each other, just for a little while. Most of all I hope it means Majima can be at least some degree of upfront one day, before it's straight up too late 💥

(tl;dr Yeah, honestly, Majima just sitting down and talking with Kiryu for once means more for himself than killing himself over that eternal life elixir ever could have. He's an old ass man, he should learn to settle down a bit, you know?)

[stephgingrich]

little elphie value study because i’m trying out csp

[zolo-san]

Are Zoro and Sanji virgins? I mean Zoro doesn't seem to be interested in love and sex at all. Sanji on the other hand is flirting alot but would maybe have died from nosebleeding (during sex). 😅👀

omg yes those boys are 100% virgins™

So I hc that Zoro is actually demisexual so he'd have to get to know someone for them to even be on the roster when it comes to him being attracted to them I think he's also really okay with the fact that no one has really "done it for him" tho Like I don't think that was ever a priority or anything he really thought about But the first time he does feel any attraction towards someone he has a very "Woah wtf???? Wtf is that??? Is that allowed??" reaction and he has to kinda come to terms with it but also, Zoro is very much the "While you all were having sex, I studied the blade" guy and I love him for that With Sanji I think he loves the idea of romance and flirting but has ZERO relationship experience I also think that Sanji romanticizes specifically the idea of being with a woman and while he often thinks about it he's actually never felt real romantic feelings for one (tho he really wants to) He's mostly felt never felt much more than plutonic love, like he has for Robin and Nami, or just felt horny tbh I genuinely believe that Sanji is more in love with the idea of being in love I also hc Sanji as bisexual and truly believe that he's much more comfortable with his attraction to women and struggles a lot with internalized homophobia when it comes to his attraction to men

Now, I love them both for being virgins™ and I think it makes a lot of sense, especially considering their ages and their lives up until we meet them in the series both of them are 19 when we meet them and they both did not lead lives that were particularly conducive having a lot of relationship or sexual experiences Zoro was literally busy "studying the blade" and being a bounty hunter (aka getting lost at sea lol) And Sanji was working and living at his surrogate dad's restaurant Both of them were also fighting their own demons lol neither of these situations seem like the time or place for a teen to be exploring their sexuality to me (not that I think Zoro had any interest in that at all to begin with)

I'm also a Zosan shipper so I have opinions about them that are related to each other Like the fact that I think Sanji is the first person Zoro literally ever feels attraction for and he immediately is like "Oh...he's gotta go..." And I think in turn, when Sanji starts to feel attraction for Zoro it makes Sanji have to face a part of himself that actually makes him really uncomfortable

But both of them together....absolute mess~ they have no clue what they're doing I do think Zoro is more confident tho and quicker to accept how he feels and just embrace it, while Sanji is more timid and scared by it all