Twins. Happy Chuuya(s) Day!

Dropping this Higugin au before my next lesson 👁️👁️

Regarding the mark mentioned by Kiringham, I am convinced that this is the tattoo we see on Sommers' arm. The pattern looks a lot like the Summoning circle, and since this mark is what allows someone to use this circle, it makes sense for this tattoo to be the mark.

Gunko's angry reaction to Kiringham's statement that only people with this mark can pass through the "abyss", and that's why they would have to take the children with them by ship, makes me wonder if she has some kind of bad story with that. If she really isn't a World Noble, could it be that whoever had the ability to give these marks to someone (probably Imu), didn't want to give this mark to her at first, perhaps because they didn't consider her worthy of it? So she would be the only one of the Holy Knights who had to travel by ship. Thus, Gunko, who we have already seen to be a very defensive person when she punished Loki for refusing such a "wonderful" offer as joining the World Nobles, would have taken Kiringham's speech as insulting her in some way, even though Kiringham doesn't seem to think so.

I also saw some people talking about how Shanks could have let his arm get eaten when he saved Luffy to lose that mark, so no one could summon him, since we see that the person doesn't need to agree for the summon to work. I find this theory quite interesting, mainly because Shanks was already a year old when he was found by the Roger pirates, so it is likely that this mark had already been placed on him. Maybe it was because of this mark that Roger found out about Shanks' biological family? It is possible that Roger discovered this mark along with the rest of the Void Century story, and, knowing that he was going to die, decided to tell Shanks the truth so that he could find his "family" and decide for himself what he would do with his life.

The Holy Knights get more and more interesting with each chapter! Honestly, I'm loving them as antagonists!

I have more questions about Gunko every time she appears because so many things about her don't seem to add up. She is the only Holy Knight who has not received the title of World Noble or had her family name introduced (she also does not have a Saint in her name, but neither does Shamrock). She's also the only "celestial dragon" we've seen who has the power of a devil fruit (and we know from Hancock's story that they despise devil fruits), her uniform is very different from the others, and her eyes having different colors seems like it's going to be important in some way. Her powers are very similar to Imu's aesthetically, so I don't think it's a coincidence that she is the one who summons the "abyss" (the pentagram "portal"). Also, her name means "army child", which may imply that she was recruited (perhaps as a child) and trained to be part of the Holy Knights.

Kiringham being introduced in his hybrid form immediately catched my attention. Does his normal appearance reveal some kind of secret about him? He's the only Holy Knight introduced so far who wears the same bubble on his head as the other World Nobles, and the one he wears even appears to have something to help him breathe, so it's possible he has some sort of respiratory illness, or was only recently recruited, so he may have never actually left the Holy Land, which would explain why he was so nervous about being late even though he was already dressed and transformed. Personally, I feel like he could be quite young? As I said, he seems to be very nervous and curious about Elbaph, which probably means he has never been outside of Mary Geoise, and the bubble could be to prevent him from being corrupted by the air from the “filthy world”, also, the way he talks reminds me a bit of a teenager, but that could just be the translation I read.

Having a Holy Knight from one of the Gorosei's family is really exciting, and I hope this helps us answer some questions about the elders. Sommers also seems to be the oldest of the four, and it's the first to take responsability after finding out that Shamrock needs to go back to Mary Geoise, so he probably has been a Holy Knight for a very long period before the current time. He's also the first person we see actually concerned about the food thing in the Holy Land (which is kind of crazy, but okay).

And I don't even need to start talking about the whole Shamrock situation.

Also, the fact that Sommers so casually asked if Shamrock and Gunko were visiting Harald's grave is pretty weird. Like, we know what World Nobles are like, why would they care about Harald? He wasn't even affiliated with the government (and they wouldn't care about him either if that were the case), so why would they travel such a great distance just to see his grave? Why is this a possibility?? Was Harald also a Holy Knight? That's the only way I can see it being reasonable. We can see from their interactions in this chapter that the Holy Knights seem to get along pretty well, so two of them visiting the grave of a deceased colleague would make sense. This could explain why they tried to recruit Loki specifically and not another insanely powerful individual, since he would be the son of a former member, and we know how much they care about bloodlines.

These glasses made me cry.

Usually, whenever fanatism and admiration become too much to the point of wanting to turn yourself into your idol, you end up forgetting yourself. She begins the short by dressing exactly like Nami (no glasses despite needing them and sandals to walk Nami's steps) and complaining about how she could pretend to be a better Nami than the fake one.

She thanks Nami for inspiring her to be adventurous and live an intrepid life, to the point where it seems she wants to be her in order to do so.

And yet, at the end of the day, it's herself (with her glasses, barefoot and far from the perfect ideal she has of Nami) the one who saves the day and gets to live her own adventure.

Hi by the way I'm never going to not throw up when thinking about what BSD says about abusers and victims. Abuse can occur out of love or a desire to protect or save or help someone and it's still abuse. Abuse can occur and years later you will still feel the affects so deeply it's as if it's a part of your body. Your abuser can change and regret and sometimes that means you will walk away over and over and sometimes it means you will throw yourself at them over and over and both are because you never developed a sense of self beyond what they made you to be. Your abuser will die and you will cry and you will hate him and in your weakest moments his memory will be there. Your abuser will live and become a better person and you're still stuck there unable to move on. The sheer complexity of what it allows and asks of us - to understand that at the end of the day we're all people fucking each other up and making mistakes. No one is a monster and wouldn't it just be easier if we were?

She's not wearing pants even though it's snowing because she used the fabric to attack that giant in the castle TO ME

Elise is a child despite having existed for decades because she looks like a child, thinks like a child and acts like a child.

Sigma is an adult despite having existed for three years because he looks like an adult, thinks like an adult and acts like an adult

can we talk about the fact that shanks probably goes to elbaf so frequently because he misses gaban and wants to visit him? 🥺 and we know that he met with rayleigh at some point too a few years ago kajdkans he misses his dads so much 😭😭

Something quite curious that I noticed in this chapter is that every time Gunko appears, her only visible eye is the lightest one. In every panel that she appears, either only half of her face is visible, or her right eye cannot be seen, covered either by her bangs or her hat. There's also a moment where she moves her hat only to lower it further over her eyes, and this is the same moment where she sees Brook for the first time, who seems quite confused by her action. Of course, this may not mean anything, but it is a very interesting detail, because it is obviously intentional. I don't remember her darker eye being so hidden in the other chapters she appears in, and this detail caught my attention because in the first chapters where Gunko was introduced, a lot of people connected her to Imu, because of her arrow powers and Imu's arrow-shaped attack, and I saw some people saying that maybe Gunko's eyes were different colors to symbolize some kind of connection with Imu, I'm not really sure what that connection could be, but it could be something related to her powers (or maybe with that regeneration ability she showed in this chapter, since that ability of the Gorosei seems to have been given to them by Imu), or she could share her vision and senses with Imu as a way for them to gain access to information about the world outside of Pangea Castle, or even some kind of brainwashing/mind control if we're being extreme. Like I said, I'm not sure where Oda is going with, or if he's even going anywhere with this, but I'm really excited to find out either way.

Was listening to Once Upon a December and became possessed and speedran an AU in my brain of basically where Sora divorces and exiles Judge, and eventually marries Zeff. But Judge returns and this results in the whole family besides Zeff and Sanji being killed. Cue the usual plot of the movie -rolls wrist-

Zoro wants the reward money so he can pay off Nami kjhflk

All in all, I just really wanted to replicate the heartbreaking scene of Anastasia dancing with the memory figment of her father while her family watches :'3

And just when I thought the parallels between Loki and Luffy would stop...