#loved him ever since i was a child when he was first introduced in marineford

[kame56u]

happy birthday izou!

[an-unkindness-of-muses]

So I Updated Cassie’s Backstory

I mostly updated her backstory to match more of the current events of OP, I also made a massive change to what set her on her path. And before you complain I did the math and checked the timelines, so Doflamingo would’ve been a pirate when her family was killed. It made more sense in the longrun and since Shanks’ parents are never referenced, ever, I played with the idea that her father was a pirate with the Donquixote pirates that left the crew after realizing that Doflamingo was a monster. The rest is written below. 

Cassandra grew up in the West Blue with her parents and her older brother Shanks who was about nine when she was born. The two were thick as thieves as they grew up, always causing trouble together and being all around little terrors. As far as Cassandra knew their father was a fisherman who left on long trips for work, and their mother was a stay at home mother. Their father loved music too. He always taught Shanks and Cassandra the songs he’d learn from the other fishermen and such. Though Shanks didn’t show much interest, Cassandra went the extra step and even learned to play the instruments he had lying around. 

Unfortunately, by the time Cassandra was about 6, Shanks left to become a pirate, leaving her and her parents alone. She never forgave him for it, all she wanted was to know why he left her behind. For years she held that anger and grudge towards him, even going so far as to say he was no longer her brother. 

One day, after turning 14 though, Cassandra’s world was turned upside down. A pirate ship came into port, which wasn’t unusual but this one brought with it a foreboding. Cassandra pleaded with her parents to leave before whomever was on the ship showed themselves but her father simply told her over and over it was going to be okay. The man that had gotten off the ship was a tall man with a twisted grin that nearly split his face and a feathered pink coat that hung to his knees.  

There was a moment where her father went up and started talking to him before he laughed and yelled something to the crew. Everything happened so fast, gunshots rang out, swords clashed, it was almost like a terrible nightmare. Cassandra’s mother pleaded with her child to run as the man approached her and killed her with a flick of his wrists. Cassandra grew furious and took up  a sword one of the villagers had dropped, trying to run the man through despite the obvious height and size difference. When he made no move to defend himself, Cassandra dared hope she had gotten the upper hand until she felt the blade connect. Instead of blood, or even a connection of steel to flesh, Cassandra found herself frozen in place.  

Doflamingo cackled and instead of killing her, used her body against her to strike down the people in her village.  He made it a point to tell her she wouldn’t die, that he’d let her live as a reminder to anyone she met that they weren’t to cross Doflamingo ever. As a last momento to the girl, he waved his fingers and brought Cassandra to stand just behind her father who was mourning his dead wife. He let out a sickening cackle and flicked his wrist, causing Cassandra to burry the sword in his heart. After the villagers were slain, Doflamingo’s men set the village ablaze and left. Cassandra managed to escape on a small dingy that had escaped the pirate’s wrath. She was destroyed. Her mother was dead, and she had killed her father.

She ended up drifting at sea for days until she was found by some marines and taken to the nearest island. She was sent to a hospital where she was treated for her wounds, dehydration and exposure before they made plans to send her to an orphanage. Instead one of the nurses caring for her, an older woman, offered to take her in. Her husband and her never could have children, and they had means to take care of the girl. 

Cassandra lived with them till she was 19, helping as much as she could. Since she wasn’t very good at fishing or gardening, she made a little money here and there playing her father’s ocarina he’d given to her before he passed away. One day, a man told her he loved her music but couldn’t afford to pay her, so he gave her a strange looking fruit saying it was worth more than anything he could’ve given her. She took it as just some old man taking pity on her, but said nothing and simply thanked him. About halfway through the day, she realized she was really hungry and hadn’t taken a lunch with her. Remembering that the man had given her that fruit, Cassandra quickly ate it, ignoring the fact that it tasted gross. 

The old woman that had taken her in saw Cassandra eat the strange fruit as she had been out shopping, and was just a bit too late in stopping her. After rushing her home, the woman explained that Cassandra had just eaten a devil fruit and that she was now cursed. She’d never be able to swim again and would have stange powers for the rest of her life. After doing some experiments, Cassandra had given up trying to figure out her new power. One day, she had been carrying water to the house when she almost fell and out of nowhere a rope of water wrapped around her waist and kept her from falling. After doing even MORE research, she found out she had eaten the Splash Splash Fruit, granting her the power to manipulate water to a point. Per the older couples request, she didn’t use these powers very often though. 

After turning 19, Cassandra decided she was going to leave and find the man with the Devil’s Grin and make him pay for what he did. Only six months after she began her journey, disaster struck. The ship she had been traveling on was caught by some Marines who decided to sink the ship rather than take prisoners. Cassandra had managed to cling to some driftwood for a short period of time but because of the curse of the Devil Fruit, she soon began sinking into the murky depths.

Just when she’d given up all hope, she found herself being saved by a man wearing a white chef’s uniform with a giant brown pompadour. He introduced himself as Thatch, 4th Division Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates. At first, Cassandra was freaked out, after all, the Whitebeard Pirates were one of THE most notorious crews in the world. After he started tending to her wounds and making sure she was alright though, Cassandra didn’t feel as fearful of him. Thatch made sure she was alright before taking her to meet Whitebeard himself.

After meeting the famous man and telling him her story of how her brother left, her village was destroyed and she’d been looking for the man with the Devil's own smile, Whitebeard decided to make her a member of his crew. Though she was hesitant to the idea at first, after a few months aboard the Moby Dick, she found herself becoming pretty at home. She even became good friends with Marco, Ace and Thatch, especially Thatch since he was the one that saved her from her watery demise. 

Thatch even took her into the 4th Division to make sure he could keep an eye on her. During her years of service aboard the Moby, she made friends with everyone. Well, everyone except Marshal D. Teach. She could never figure out what it was, but something about the man terrified her to the core. Much to her dismay, her fears were soon realized. One night, she’d gone to give Thatch a hand in the kitchen when she saw it. 

Thatch was lying face down, a knife in his back, in a pool of his own blood. Upon confirming that Teach was the one who killed her commander, Cassie begged Whitebeard to let her join the hunt for the traitor with Ace. It took some convincing, but he finally agreed to let her go. Their travels took them all overand eventually they found Blackbeard on Banaro Island. WHile the fight didn't go as either of the Commander's planned, Ace bought enough time for Cassandra to escape. She ended up meeting up with her crew, emotionally destroyed and barely standing.

She recovered with her crew before they set sail for Marineford after the anouncment of Ace's execution. Just before they arrived, Whitebeard took Cassandra aside and spoke with her. He revealed that not only did he know her parents, he and her mother had been intimate after a fight she'd had with her husband. When Cassie was born, it didn't take much for her father to put two and two together about the time of conception as he was away on a voyage for three months at that point. Cassie was shocked at this news. In her shock and anger, she snapped and told him she couldn't deal with the news in that moment.

What she didn't realize was that she wouldn't get another chance. After the battle of Marineford, not only did she lose her brother, Cassandra watched as the man that had taken her brother in arms and his crew murdered Whitebeard as he stood there. After suffering the loss of their brother and father, Cassie saw Shanks appear to put an end to the war. She hated him for it, wanted to scream and curse his name but she could only bring herself to leave with her crewmates in tow.

After their burial, Cassandra remained with her crew, seeking out revenge on Teach and his crew whilst trying to keep the already broken family together.

[anonymouscrocodilefan]

Leadership Styles and Law (”Law is an INTP” revisited)

Haha what this is a Croco blog, why am I talking about Law after months of silence.

To be honest? Because this past year of developments in the manga has left me feeling REALLY vindicated about my reads on characters again. I am terrible at predicting Oda, but my track record at interpreting and analyzing his subtext ain’t too shabby. My read on Sanji, frex. Also, I actually REALLY regret not talking about Viola in depth before now – I mentioned her in passing in at least one post I published, but really regret relegating my thoughts on her relationship with Doffy to “ah this is crack I’m reading too much into this and no one cares anyway right?” Because one recent SBS more or less confirmed what I’d been thinking about there – and why I found her character very very fascinating in context, despite her being fairly low on my list of “characters I like”. Maybe I should still put together a writeup on that at some point.

But I digress.

Just as this past Year of Sanji has more or less borne out my thoughts on Sanji (despite his intelligence, spy hijinks, and capacity for trickery, he is not a calculating rational type of person as some people kept insisting, but a Myers-Briggs Feeling type who deeply values interpersonal relationships above all else, for better or for worse)... towards the end of Zou there was one particular chapter that made me feel SUPER pleased about my read on Law.

Specifically, my opinion that he is an INTP, despite the fact that he doesn’t fit into any of the cliched, stereotypical images of INTPs. (And the fact that I saw a fair amount of people complaining about the apparent inconsistency between his pre-timeskip personality vs. his post-timeskip personality.)

I wrote about that in this post: http://anonymouscrocodilefan.tumblr.com/post/135651487781/one-piece-mbti-allies-introverted

Mainly in that post I talked in generalities about his relationships and his plotting style and how they related to the cognitive functions (read up on them if you’re not sure what I’m talking about, but the four abbreviated letters aren’t just binary labels).

Chapter 819 though, made me giggle so much, because Law’s behavior through that entire sequence (throughout all of Zou, really) is basically THE ultimate giveaway of his INTP-ness.

Disclaimer: As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’m an INTP myself (if it wasn’t already obvious from all my tl;dr analysis). Whether this fact biases me towards or against this interpretation of Law is up to you – but I will add that I originally only grew confident in my assessment after we saw our first glimpse in text of child!Law.

Preliminary note: throughout the Zou arc, Law very noticeably retreated into the background. He was off-screened for many chapters (for good reason). But hilariously, even when he was ON screen... he was often deliberately blocked out by word bubbles or just a silhouette in the distance. This despite the fact that he is technically the other major leader of the alliance...

Guess what? INTPs hate to lead. We’ll do it if we have to and depending on the individual we might even do a decent job of it. (Yes, introverts can hold leadership positions.) But we’d rather not, all in all. So was I surprised at Law backing off? Nope, not at all. In fact, I’d expected it. (And it’s not like hiding/fading isn’t “normal” behavior for him – he owns a submarine, ya know.)

1. What Law is most definitely NOT:

- an ISTJ. He’s contrasted directly with Drake in his own flashbacks, even. If he were a dutiful ISTJ sort who believed in the system despite everything he’d gone through, Law would’ve been in the perfect position to join the Marines the way Drake did. I mean, kid wasn’t stupid. He knew who Cora really was. He let Cora lie to him because he wanted to believe in the lie, but he clearly wasn’t fooled.

More importantly, an ISTJ leader (they’re one of the more common introvert leader types due to their dutiful nature) tends to be more anchored by a strong sense of responsibility. No ISTJ leader would have EVER run off to pursue their own personal agenda the way Law did (it’s even made explicit that Law never expected to see his crew again). And it’s not like Law doesn’t care, doesn’t love his crew – he very clearly does. But he simply doesn’t feel that sort of obligation toward them. Hell, he can’t even be bothered to introduce them properly. XD

In fact, we need look no further than Jinbe for a classic ISTJ leader, torn between his various conflicting duties and obligations and his own personal desires. Completely different from Law.

- an INTJ. An INTJ is characterized by meticulous long-term planning – which I have already pointed out in the previous post, doesn’t actually characterize Law and his ability to be spontaneous, as well as the specific ways his plans fall short.

Again, it’s also interesting to consider leadership styles. I do believe INTJs & INTPs are closer in that regard (most of us aren’t interested in being “leaders”, but INTJs are more likely to have ambitions that involve being thrust into such positions), but perhaps the best point of comparison is INTJ Croco.

Because you know what more “developed” and/or ambitious INTJs are good at that INTPs definitely aren’t? PR. XD

Croco played up that heroic public persona of his for more than twenty fucking years. And is obviously a man very much concerned with keeping up appearances, even during a fucking prison escape of all things XD. Law? Law has a TERRIBLE public rep, what with his coldblooded heart-swapping and whatnot. He doesn’t care what the public thinks, he doesn’t think it matters (from his experience, it’s all a lie anyway). He doesn’t consider that public perception can be used as a weapon – or rather, he definitely does, but I don’t think he understood the full extent of it. See also: everything he tried to pull off wrt Doflamingo (his goal had not been so much undermining Doffy’s “public” reputation, but Doffy’s position in the underworld – had he taken the former into account, I think he would have perhaps not been so blindsided by what ended up happening).

And then there’s Marineford to consider: time and time again Croco decides to step up to the plate – towards the end, he even briefly takes on the mantle of leadership when all the WB pirates are despairing. INTJs definitely have more of an assertive tendency (compared to INTPs). Law? Even then he was a “wait and see” sort of person. He’s explicitly the one Supernova who delays entry into the New World – a pretty INTP thing to do, btw. We’re perfectly capable of being risktakers and making spur of the moment decisions, but ultimately, passivity (out of a desire to keep gathering more info) is more likely to be our downfall.

- an ISTP: If an INTJ is characterized by too much plotting, I guess it’s arguable that an ISTP is characterized by too little. XD (Zoro is the classic example: ACT FIRST THINK LATER.)

ISTP leaders though... ISTPs are again actually fairly close to INTPs – lone wolf tendencies mean that you rarely actually see them in true leadership positions, although they’re capable of it (Zoro). IMO the main difference though is that an ISTP will tend to lead by example and decisive action. An INTP has ideas about what should be done but isn’t going to go out of their way to make sure those ideas are enforced. See again the same scene I referenced when discussing ISTJs. XD

(Note that he doesn’t actually explicitly forbid them from introducing themselves. XD)

2. Seriously though, having achieved his major life goal, post-Dressrosa Law doesn’t really care that much about leading. He’s perfectly content to cede control to Luffy... and even to Zoro. He speaks up only to clarify what he’ll personally do/contribute to the task at hand or to ask about things he’s interested in (even then he doesn’t always ask, we sometimes see panels where he’s just reacting silently), never to suggest a course of action (it even takes outside prompting for him to remember that he has Bepo’s Vivre Card... yep, that’s an INTP derp moment all right – it’s not that we don’t care, it’s just that our brains don’t prioritize like that).

This is to the extent that he’s even blatantly shocked when Kin’emon includes him in his request for alliance in Chapter 819:

(Who, me?!)

Hahaha, I hadn’t even noticed that on my first readthrough, but when I later went back to read the chapter I found it hilarious (yeah, I know, it’s not THAT funny, fairly normal/subdued reaction, even Luffy had a bit of a surprised look, but still – this IS Law’s freakout face, he has pretty much the exact same expression in the previous chapter when the big reveal about the Kouzuki relationship to poneglyphs* is made and everyone else’s jaw is dropping, and a similar expression when he hears about Kaidou’s direct involvement with Momo & co, and an earlier omgwtf face when Raizou shows off his ninja techs...). I mean, it’s kind of a given that Law should be addressed for a major decision like this as well, but it’s like Law expects everything to just go through Luffy from now on... XD

* For the record, I wonder what else Law knows that he’s not telling anyone. He reacted suspiciously to two things that I recall during this arc: Momo’s ability to hear the voice (chapter 817) and to the poneglyph info... after Dressrosa it had seemed that his knowledge of “D” came solely from Corazon (disappointing everyone still waiting on his pre-timeskip quote to bear fruit), but we’ve been getting hints again that he actually has picked up some more info on his own since then.

3. But wait, you say. Doesn’t Law complain about this exact issue immediately after that???

[… After pretty much everyone else has already agreed to the deal.]

(Some other translations made it more explicit; this one is closer to the more subtle needling of the original text, but the implication given the context is that he’s grouchy over Luffy not bothering to consult him regarding major decisions, like, ever [i.e. “He cares more about an eight-year-old’s opinion than about mine!111”].)

Well, yeah. But see, it’s a semantics thing. XD A matter of principle. And trust me, for INTPs, semantics is Serious Business. Even Kin’emon took the time to acknowledge Law’s ostensible position. Luffy though... Law is WELL aware by now what Luffy’s idea of an “alliance” means, and he still does not approve. XD

That’s what he’s all pissy about. The fact that Luffy just assumes everyone is buddy-buddy and will therefore just go along with everything without question. (“That’s not the way this works!”)

(Luffy’s not wrong though. If Law really had a problem with it, he could have and no doubt would have spoken up much earlier. XD Luffy just instinctively has a good read on Law’s personality, LOL.)

As further proof, just a few pages later we have this:

Yep. Semantics. XD

Does it really bother him that he’s getting no say in any of this? Nah. As long as there’s some sort of plan going on and it’s not completely absurd (… not always a guarantee with Luffy involved), he doesn’t really care. He’ll do his part (while holding his cards close to his chest), and trust that the others will do theirs. Very hands-off, very self-contained. Very much an INTP approach to leadership.

Even so: there’s a difference between alliance and friendship, and IT MATTERS. XD