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moongothic · 5 months

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It is interesting though 'cause, since we have no fucking True Clue what the hell Crocodile's actual real End Goal with Cross Guild is right now (does he want to get One Piece and fight the Strawhats+Shanks, does he want to get Pluton from Wano (and/)or does he want to destroy the World Government?? We don't know), that we just have a fuck ton of theories on what could happen, but no way to really tell what the actual direction this entire plot thread is going to be

And one I've seen a lot of people suggest was Cross Guild recruiting more of the former (/OG) Shichibukai into their ranks

And I just find that idea so fucking interesting

Because this is where one needs to remember that Oda based the OG Shichibukai on the Seven Heroes from Romancing SaGa 2. The Seven Heroes were a legendary group who once in the past saved the world from a great evil (before disappearing and turning into an evil for the game's protags to defeat). Just reading the descriptions you can see how each of the OG Shichibukai match up to one of the heroes respectively. And the inspo would be fine and dandy by itself, like just some fun trivia about what inspired Oda. But the Seven Heroes were specifically created and lead by Wagnas, with Noel as his right-hand. Wagnas happens to be the character Crocodile matches up with, and Mihawk just happens to match up with Noel. And here we have Crocodile starting a new organization with Mihawk by his side, with unknown true goals. And we do have that one World Government that needs to get overthrown so the world can be "saved". So like.

Suddenly, the idea that Cross Guild could recruit some of the other former Shichibukai (to maybe help take down the World Government?) doesn't sound too out-landish at all

Especially because Moria alone is already like an actual contender for someone who could maybe join Cross Guild. Like, assuming he's alive and made it out of Fullalead with Perona. 'Cause with Absalom dead and Hogback gone with the wind, Moria should have like nothing else left but himself and Perona. And while knowing Moria he's going to be Very Happy about reuniting with Perona, like... where's he gonna go? What's he gonna do if the two escaped Fullalead? But because Perona and Mihawk already know each other, Perona could very easily become a bridge to getting Moria with CG, especially if he's still wounded etc from the escape, Perona would want her boss' to survive and she'd trust Mihawk to help probably. And god knows, if Blackbeard tried or even succeeded at stealing Moria's Fruit, the man could have some legit good intel on Blackbeard (and how he steals powers) that he could then share with CG, something Crocodile could appreciate. Also, if Crocodile and Mihawk want to ensure the Marines are too scared to come after them, getting Moria in their ranks would help with that.

Then there's Kuma. And. Well. Assuming Kuma doesn't kick the bucket in the next few chapters. If Kuma is still somehow alive and his soul/memories can be put into a body (some people have been suggesting his memories could be implanted maybe into a Pacifista or that giant robot on Egghead or maybe even his Seraphim, or maybe just memories could be returned back into his original body), and if he'll still have the ability to near-instantly travel across the planet then I'm putting my money on him returning to the Revolutionaries to be honest. But if he loses that ability, I don't think he's going to be sticking with the Strawhats to be honest. That said, he'll still need somewhere to go (with Bonney?), and with the rest of the Revs on the other side of the Grand Line... Cross Guild could, potentially, be the nearest, safest place for him, if for no other reason than the other former Shichibukai might be his safest bet right now. Especially if Crocodile ever did have any involvement with the Revolutionaries. But indeed, this assumes Kuma isn't Turbo Perma-Dead Forever, which remains to be seen.

I know a lot of people love Doflamingo and would love to see him back. Personally I want him to stay in jail, where he deserves to be. <3 Also I don't think Crocodile would ever want Doflamingo working for him, let alone go out of his way to travel to Paradise to let him out (though if they did, they could also release Weevil while at it, since he's also stuck in Impel Down) (But honestly, unless someone else goes to break Weevil out and Doflamingo just escapes while he's at it, don't think he's getting out)

Quick honorable mention to Law, since he is also a Former Shichibukai. His crew got nuked by Blackbeard but I doubt he'd join Crocodile and Mihawk for any reason, especially if he's still in the race for One Piece (assuming Cross Guild isn't) (Like Buggy is but Buggy might skedaddle for all we know)

But with the Shichibukai, this just leaves us with Hancock.

Thing is, last we saw her she was still in Paradise, wanting to reunite with Luffy. It is entirely plausible she could (or may already have) set out for the New World if she feels like she has to leave Amazon Lily to protect her home-- which she might have to, considdering without her warlord status the Government has gone after her. But indeed, if Hancock is on the run and heading to the New World, surely she'd want to find Luffy. So why would she ever join Cross Guild? She doesn't like men (aside from Luffy), so surely she wouldn't trust that disaster crew with a clown for a mascot. But again. This is where "what the fuck is Crocodile's end goal" comes in again. Because if he wants to destroy the World Government and wreck the Nobles' out of orbit... Well. I don't think convincing Hancock to go back to the place where she was kept in slavery for years would be easy. But also. Perhaps, just perhaps, she could be persuaded into committing some delicious revenge under the right circumstances (whatever that might be).

IDK man, there's potential here, things could get so interesting with Cross Guild and whatever the fuck Crocodile is planning (vs how Buggy's mutiny rolls out)

It is kind of funny though, how like the best case scenario for Cross Guild Shichibukai Reunion would be like. Kuma and his daughter. Moria, Mihawk and their collective daughter. Crocodad and his sharp boyfriend. And Luffy's wannabe fiancée. (The clown is optional)

#Moon posting #Cross Guild #OP Spoilers #OP Meta #I do want to note though that appearently amongst the scrapped ideas for Film RED one was about...#...A rescue of Bon-chan from a NEW (flying!) Impel Down.#While another scrapped idea from Oda was about Crocodile and Doflamingo appearing in the Film #(Not sure the ideas were connected but since Mingo is supposed to be in prison Croc pulling a Blackbeard doesn't sound too odd)#(And yeah if someone was breaking into ID to rescue Bon-chan then Croc sneaking in to say 'hi' to Mingo at the same time seems viable)#Wherever these ideas would've gone we won't know but since these would've been movie-exclusive stories #(And Oda specifically doesn't want the movies to have anything plot-relevant happen in them)#I doubt Doflamingo is getting out of Impel Down for a Shichibukai Reunion (if Film RED was going to let him out)#Waited long and hard if I wanted to wait until Chapter 1099 and/or 1100 dropped but no #If the part about Kuma ages like milk then so be it #Yeet #Get outta my drafts #Also of course there's Jinbei but our man ain't leaving the Strawhats lmao #Sad to think though that we never got to see the OG Shichibukai fight together as a group (and probs never will)#Since even in Marineford it was just 5 of the OG and the two others kinda doing their own thing

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sysig · 9 months

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Just a few favourites, only a couple, I swear (Patreon)

#Doodles #Wander Over Yonder #Commander Peepers #Lord Hater #Sylvia #Wander #SCII #ZEX #DAX #Emperor Awesome #Continuing to feel deeply normal about C. Peeps don't even worry about it I'm so normal about him lol #Definitely not thinking about him a lot or anything #Oh yeah and I guess there's a few others there as well lol they're also invited #The middlies of Hater and Sylvia and Wander were mostly getting back into the groove of drawing them since it's been so long #It's wild to me 'cause I know I doodled them for a good clip of time but it was before I was regularly posting so there's no evidence!#Lol - I just looked back at my original doodles and one of my notes reads ''Got 99 problems and C. Peeps is about 4 of them'' - accurate #I also recently realized that part of my love of DAX/ZEX's dynamic is probably rooted in my love of Death Glare.....parallels man every time #The subordinate/Keeper role who is solely devoted to their higher up and calls them Sir - and the one large eye! Lol #I've also found a surprising amount of like?? really gorgeous Rule 63 of a lot of the big names in the cast! I was surprised!#Lots of very cute Hater and Wander but gods Peepers is the absolutely cutest as a lady I can't get over it #Doesn't stop my rampant transmasc Peepers HC tho lol - I like him fine as cis as well here and there for flavour lol #But trans C. Peeps just feels the Most correct #I didn't see much of 63'd Awesome tho! Which I think is a shame Awesome has a very nice design #I actually really like Awesome! I think I like his fanon interpretation better but how fun his design is helps haha #A lot of things would've gone differently if there were more lady villains but I for one would've been about 50% more gay so there's that lo #Muscley shark lady 👉👈 Electric skeleton lady 👉👈 We've already got the lava lady villain! More!! Lol

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thefirstknife · 1 year

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Kraken Mare

And ANOTHER thing, from TWAB:

And we’re not kidding when we say we’re going under the sea…here’s a glimpse of one of the places you’ll be headed in Season of the Deep:

There will be actual underwater sections! That makes me insane right away.

Also, this is a Golden Age facility. Why is it at the bottom of the ocean? Or in some sort of a cave? Well, we don't know, but we do know that they were investigating Titan's ocean(s) back in the Golden Age. Perfect time to talk about it!

I cannot recommend Last Days on Kraken Mare enough as a lore book, as it's not only relevant right now, but it's one of the only true and direct accounts of the Collapse starting and the devastation it brought. Last two pages deal with a scientist who was doing research on life in the ocean.

In The Water Sun, Part I, the scientist Maury Yamashita is diving to open a pen with creatures he calls swarmers in order to save them as the Collapse is starting. They were native to Titan and, from the way he talks, we know they weren't originally in the place where their cage is at.

Sorry, Mia, he thinks. It has to be worth my life, or I'm worth more than them, and I know I'm not. I put them there. It's my job to let them out.

He's always loved the stupid little swarmers.

When Titan gets pulled and released from the gravity attack, it causes a massive disturbance not just on the methane sea, but also in the ice shelf and subsurface ocean; yes, Titan has another, non-methane ocean under the surface:

"The tidal pull. The ghost mass. It just… left. The moon is collapsing back to spheroid shape. I'm detecting primary waves in the subsurface ocean—it's a quake. It's a quake! Maury, get away from the substructure! Get clear!"

Maury imagines 60-plus meters of bulging moon, Titan's mass hauled up into a teardrop pointed at the sky—suddenly released. Smashing and scraping and grinding back into equilibrium. Cracks in the ice spewing plumes of water and ammonia. Continent-sized shelves slamming and rebounding and calving like bergs. The whole vast inner ocean sloshing back into its shape.

Maury gets tossed and tumbled in the methane ocean and has a fear that, with the ice cracking, he will fall over "into the abyss," meaning through the ice shelf:

"The swarmers," he says, and he jettisons his buoyancy tanks. Without that lift he is so much denser than the bad water around him that he plunges like a skydiver toward the cross brace below, where the swarmer pen is anchored. Titan's gravity may be gentle, but even gentle acceleration adds up. He hits hard, and the spinmetal surface blasts the air out of his lungs. He gasps and gags. Scrabbles for purchase before he slides off and falls into the abyss. He's going over—no! No! He is not going over! He will not fall!

In Part II, Maury saves himself with his hi-tech suit and finally reaches his swarmers. He gives us a description!

The swarmers seethe and pulsate in the perforated plastic sac. Not Titan's highest life, nor its lowest, they hive across the icy sea-bottom in enormous braided patterns that speak to Maury of intelligence. Not individually—not even at the hive level—but some kind of vast concert, conducted, perhaps, by leviathans down beneath the ice shell, communicating across the barrier by magnetic whisper that the swarmers receive via organic SQUIDs. An ecology spanning methane life and water-ammonia life. Why? How?

This is so cool! Not only does he describe the creatures, he also tells us that there's also life under the ice shelf and he calls that life "leviathans." This also means that there are probably ways to go through the ice which allowed them to study those creatures beneath the ice shelf. Maybe caves? Maybe the Golden Age facility is beneath the ice shelf. Not entirely likely, but still! Maury's theory is that the swarmers are somehow connected to those leviathans beneath the ice and that all life on Titan is a connected ecology of lifeforms that live in wastly different biomes.

These creatures predate the Traveler's arrival, which we know from the writing of Clovis Bray who specified that Titan, Europa and Enceladus were never terraformed:

Did the Traveler bypass Europa and Titan and Enceladus out of respect for their native life?

Or was it afraid to touch the things pulsating below the ice?

This is interesting now in context of the information that an "enemy of the Witness" is on Titan. Did the Traveler bypass the life or has that life always been a part of the Traveler as enemies of the being that seeks to destroy it? Or is it something more specific, like the Leviathan from the Fundament? Vibrating to find out.

Maury thinks about how he brought the swarmers up from the bottom and that he can't bear to see them all die because he captured them so he hurries to open their pen. Once he does, they all skitter back to the bottom.

The polymer shreds and the swarmers scatter, their tiny bodies siphoning liquid methane as they pump down and away. Safe. Safe.

And then:

The quake hits.

A hundred and fifty meters below, the icy basis of Kraken Mare rolls like liquid. The arcologies answer the low geological wail with a cacophony of groans and shrieks, joints flexing, tethers snapping taut, substructures soaking up unthinkable mechanical energy, trying to keep anything from—

Breaking.

Maury falls to the bottom from the blast and gets told to move it back up because the wave is coming. An ice shelf completely collapsed into Kraken Mare and the wave is going to be catastrophic and he has to reach the surface. Which he does! He manages not only to reach the surface, but also to fly out of the water with really cool Golden Age tech suit:

He makes it to the surface. He's up there in plenty of time. He can even see Dome 1, still intact, though a lot of the surrounding rigging is damaged. One of the creepy Exo soldiers stands outside, beckoning to him with a laser dazzle, guiding him in.

Maury opens his suit wings to their full membranous span. A single mighty stroke of paramuscle cups the air and hauls him up out of the sea. He's aloft! Titan air is thick, and Titan gravity is light, and like a huge bat he can fly. He puts his head down and starts building altitude, headed towards the beckoning Exo.

Alas, it's not enough. What follows is one of the best descriptions of just how utterly cataclysmic the situation was:

First, he sees the supercarrier, tragically buoyant, tragically light, built for seas with gentle one-meter tides but now riding the greatest wave Titan has ever seen, directly into Dome 2's crippled understructure. In 152 kilopascals of air pressure, the pandemonium sound of the collision has the gut-mulching power of a rocket booster.

The entire arcology collapses down onto the ship, into the sea.

Then he blinks past the devastation and recognizes the sheer scale, the utter speed, the complete imminence of that unthinkable methane wave coming down at him.

"Oh, man," he says.

This is easily in my top 5 lore books in all of Destiny. Honestly read the whole Last Days on Kraken Mare. But this final bit is so good. It's incredibly good. It was the first direct description of the type of devastation brought on by the Collapse and how incredibly impossible it is to survive it. No weapons fired, no armies involved, nothing. The moon was just squashed and then released, and gravity did the rest. Nothing short of immediately leaving the planet can help you.

It was also the first unambiguous proof that what happened on the Fundament was because of the Darkness. Last Days on Kraken Mare released in Season of Undying which was the first season of Shadowkeep. We'll wait for The Witch Queen to see the Witness admitting that it caused the God Wave of the Fundament and blamed it on the Traveler to deceive the Hive siblings, but Last Days on Kraken Mare was our first direct indication about it, as well as insight into how it's done. Our own God Wave that started the Collapse.

It's very cool that two celestial bodies with some sort of underwater leviathans linked to the Traveler were hit by cataclysmic waves to destroy them. I guess, it's the easiest thing to do to a water planet like that, but still an interesting parallel, especially now that we're very specifically going to be looking for a creature that's apparently personally an "enemy of the Witness." This lore book also confirms that the existence of some massive creatures in Titan's oceans predates the arrival of the Traveler.

So much text about that one picture, but to see a Golden Age facility at the bottom of the ocean is such a sight. I'm hoping for more Golden Age information in the next season and more about the research that went down on Titan, especially research into its life forms.

Interestingly enough, there was another important research being done on Titan, though it wasn't about Titan. But this research was the subject of the rest of the lore book and has relevance to the Collapse, as well as Ishtar and Braytech. The scientist in question was Shanice Pell who fled to Titan to build an interstellar probe. She wanted to send it to explore the universe outside of the solar system.

Both Ishtar and Braytech were interfering with her work so she went to Titan which was independent. Did Ishtar and Braytech interfere because they were also doing research on interstellar space and travel? Did they want to stop someone independent from learning more, especially about the strange anomalies in space that seemed to be coming over?

Very likely, because Shanice's probe discovered the anomaly as well. Initial data from the probe made no sense, obviously because it's paracausal, the anomaly being the Black Fleet. She continued to research and figured something is off and when she figured it out (as much as she could, we aren't sure how close she came to understanding it), she decided that her data must get out. Unfortunately, this is where Last Days on Kraken Mare happen; Shanice was being evacuated, but her evacuation was intercepted by Braytech Exos who came to aprehend her and stop her from publicising her research. She boarded the evacuation shuttle which was then shot down by Rasputin's warsat to stop her escape.

Ultimately, she died in vain. This was literally at the start of the Collapse so even if she had escaped, her data wouldn't have done much. There was no way to stop or survive the Collapse at this point. Her data may have alerted the people at the end, but nothing could've been done with it.

But it's super interesting how many stories are converging on Titan, especially now that we know more about Ishtar and Braytech and their involvement with predictive AIs, exodus projects and all the other stuff they did which ultimately led to Neomuna.

It's also been brought to my attention that the author of Last Days on Kraken Mare, Seth Dickinson, previously said that he wrote three times as much content about Titan. Titan was apparently supposed to be relevant in Forsaken, but there was not enough time in the existing crunch to get it done so it never got implemented. But he wrote a lot about it, and a third of his writing got implemented as Last Days on Kraken Mare in Shadowkeep. I'm sincerely hoping we'll see the rest of his writing about Titan in Season of the Deep. His comment:

It was supposed to be Titan content back in Forsaken but there wasn't enough time during crunch to get it all localized and hooked up. Even the chapters available in Shadowkeep are only about a third of the whole thing.

I'm looking at Bungie with the biggest eyes and hoping the rest gets released.

ONE MORE thing before we go and it's just a nice little detail about Last Days on Kraken Mare as a lore book; its "chapters" are named after various eschatological beliefs of different cultures aka beliefs about various ends of the world. Namely, The Sixth Seal from the Biblical Revelation; Tenth Avatar and Kalki's Burning Sword are from Hindu beliefs of Kalki being the Tenth Avatar of Vishnu who will appear to end the world; and the name of the final two chapters, The Water Sun, is from the Aztec myth of the Five Suns, or eras, in which each era ends with some sort of a catastrophe. The Fourth Sun (also known as Water Sun) ends with a great flood.

#destiny 2 #season of the deep #titan #lore vibing #long post #listen. i've been re-reading this lore book for the past 4 years to live vicariously through it with the lack of titan content #getting something. ANYTHING. about titan now is a personal gift to me in particular. i've wanted it since vanilla #to know they had stuff planned but had to scrap it is so painful to me. and then they never had time to go back to it #perhaps this is the content that was supposed to drop + obviously updated stuff that's relevant to us now #i'm getting dangerously overhyped for this but i can't help it #fave planet fave vibes fave apocalyptic story. so so so so glad it's returning and that we're getting so (hehe) deep into it #we'll see titan's ocean..... man.

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phoenixkaptain · 11 months

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Okay but all the little changes and everything in Scum Villain add up to the ultimate, biggest difference in the story, which is this:

Shen Qingqiu, who was an early villain in the novel who gets defeated relatively early in the story (relative to the fact that there are about a billion more pages after he becomes a human stick) and Luo Binghe, who was the main character, both completely reverse their roles.

Shen Qingqiu becomes the protagonist who is generally very well liked. The Shen Qingqiu of PIDW was a liar and a schemer and just about the most suspicious person in any given room at any given time. The Shen Qingqiu of SVSSS is a liar (by necessity) and a schemer (of ways to off himself but live through it) and just about the most suspicious person in any given room at any given time (if someone who I had a rivalry with suddenly called me a “beauty fading,” I think I would react in a similar way to Liu Qingge honestly). All the traits that made the character disliked are things that the others actively choose to ignore in the person, because they like him.

Luo Binghe becomes not just a villain, but the ultimate villain. The unbeatable villain. Luo Binghe in PIDW was generally very well-liked because he could manipulate people into thinking he wasn’t that bad and he was morally grey and he could defeat any monster with relative ease. Luo Binghe in SVSSS is generally disliked, particularly because whenever he pulls out his very convincing polite person cosplay, everyone knows that he is definitely manipulating them and is a bit wary of why. He’s morally grey but his morals are even more screwed up than his predecessor. He can defeat any monster with relative ease, but he can’t defeat any person he wants to, he can’t kill anybody he wants to, because he knows that Shen Qingqiu would hate him if he did and he doesn’t want that. The traits that the original used to his own advantage only makes this version more and more unhappy.

Shen Qingqiu goes from a villain, the villain the readers all most wanted for Luo Binghe to take out because of how terrible he was to Luo Binghe, to the protagonist.

Luo Binghe goes from the protagonist, the protagonist with hundreds of wives and the world under his control, to the villain.

I can never get over this role reversal, this swapping of spots, this absolute 180 of the characters from the base novel. It’s one of the clearest indicators of the story being permanently altered. It’s part of why they fit so well and work and it’s really good, it’s really really good I like it a lot.

#scum villain self saving system #svsss #luo binghe #shen qingqiu #bingqiu #the inane ramblings of a madman #it’s so good man #the build up to lbh being the villain the big bad is my fave #because the only person who doesn’t see him as the big bad #is sqq who has been scared of binghe since the beginning #he’s always been scared the lbh would kill him #and he totally saw it coming but at the same time was blindsided by it #bingmei is over there being unsuspicious #and sqq is like oh no when will he kill me #bingmei is over there being the most suspicious #and sqq is like this is the goodest boy who would never do anything wrong #i can’t articulate how well this worked #it’s like poetry it’s beautiful it’s amazing i love it #long post

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