* i can hear the sirens [i] (mihawk x f!reader / shanks x f!reader)

♫ "SIRENS" FLEURIE ☼ Fic Request: she’s a shy queen of the seas & has powers like Aquaman & Mera from the movie “Aquaman” and a captain of her crew of pirates of the land. When reader was a princess, shanks was having so many doubts being with her so he broke things off with her (buggy shipped them) but later regretted it when he heard that she found someone who’s a commoner & deeply in love with her and makes her happy that they’re happily married as King and Queen of the seas and they have a (mama boy) son together who’s friends with Luffy. Years later, the part where mihawk tells shanks about Luffy, the reader meets shanks after she and her husband were fighting off a monster since shanks always requested to see her. [also] - anonymous & Parts: one.

A/N: Shanks imagine / Mihawk imagine. PHEW! Okay. I have a lot to unpack here... this was seriously going to be pretty straightforward. BUT! I started writing it...and I took your request, anon, started alter it. I hope it's still good! This is honestly just the beginning. There will be more parts. I have my doc with ideas. lol! OK! Phew! So i hope you enjoy the intro to this mini story. Feedback, comments are always appreciated. Thank you for all the reads! ♥ [Warnings: soft love, a little bit of language]

IN THE BEGINNING… The crowd gathered in the center of Loguetown in anticipation of the execution of the infamous pirate - Gold Roger. Everyone was seeking the best spot to bear witness to the death of the one that no one thought would ever be caught. He had the biggest bounty, but every hunter failed to capture it. Now, he was standing on the execution platform with the biggest grin on his face.

“What a fool…” “Are you joking? He’s going to get out of this.” The crowd exchanged gossip with each other as their gaze was stapled to the platform.

You maneuvered your way through the crowd, apologizing to the ones you accidentally stepped on. “Ooof! Sorry. Sorry.” You muttered until you found him. He wore his signature coat as he watched the pirate being brought down to his knees. You slipped your hand into his, he didn’t bother to look down at you. He already knew. He responded by intertwining his fingers with yours. “What did I miss?” You asked joking.

“Someone asked where his treasure is.” He responded curiously, while his fingers rubbed your scratched-up knuckles. “Told you to be smarter with how you punch.” He said calmly.

You shrugged meekly as you glanced up at the platform. Gold Roger laughed as he started his speech. “Take to the seas. My treasure is yours to find!” He spoke confidently while his words echoed. The crowd’s cheers quickly turned into a unified gasp when the Marines stabbed the pirate.

You didn’t expect it to happen so quickly, your hand squeezed his hand tightly as a reaction. Once the crowd started to break into a frenzy, you felt him pull you closer to him to allow the crowd to scramble on the side of you. “Come on, princess, I better get you back. That’s enough entertainment for today.” He kept you close as he made his way through the crowd. Even though you followed him closely, you ended up separated as the people rushed through, breaking your connection, while tripping each other. You found yourself as one of the victims of this stampede.

You fell to your knees, your palms dug into the dirt, and felt some woman stomp on your ankle as she passed you. “Ow!” You yelled out. Arms took a hold of you to get you to your feet.

So many of the conversations that Olrox has with other characters are incredibly interesting, with a lot of stuff hidden in between the lines.

One of my favourites is his conversation with Drolta at the graveyard. In their conversation you can see just how little Drolta knows about the New World and what happened there. She tells Olrox that they've seen empires rise and fall, unaware that the empire that Olrox saw fall was his own, talks about how fickle humans are and how they flit from one God to another, again unaware that Christianity was forced upon the Aztecs and many other cultures in the Americas in an attempt to wipe out the indigenous religions and gods.

And Olrox, being the intelligent man that he is, hears Drolta talking about her human life as a priestess of Sekhmet he decides to test Drolta by bringing up the fact that her goddess and her temples are now lost and buried.

And Drolta doesn't care, she doesn't feel that loss of her culture or her past. She isn't sad. But Olrox, a man who doesn't have that kind of belief and has never been particularly religious, you know that he feels the loss of the Aztec temples, that he is still saddened by the loss of his people's religion.

And then we get the line about making a new world, and Olrox states that he's heard that one before and Drolta states that let's make this one last. And again she hasn't done her homework as she doesn't realise that the last time Olrox heard that it would have been the Spanish as they conquered and almost wiped out his people.

It's yet another important difference between old world and new world vampires. The old simply don't take the time to learn and realise just how different the lives of vampires like Olrox are compared to theirs. They just simply assume that they are the same because they are vampires. But we can see from Olrox they couldn't be anymore different.

Immediately inspired by the new Castlevania Nocturne trailer and had to make my own rococo inspired vampire huntress, meet Sabine!

One of the most interesting parts of Castlevania Nocturne is the difference between the Old World and the New World vampires.

Olrox saw not only his own people die but also saw and heard about countless other cultures across both Americas in his 260 years of being a vampire. And while we don't have any official confirmation there's a good chance that vampirism was introduced to the new world by old world vampires who probably treated their new vampiric children/spawn horribly because they were from the new world and probably thought that they were beneath them, at least initially.

Old world vampires also tend to separate themselves from humans, only engaging with humans to hunt, feed off of or use them. They see them as livestock, so far beneath them that there's no point in learning about them as they see them has having little merit or value apart from their blood.

Olrox however, is completely different, he engages with humans and chooses to live with them. He chooses to make his way to Machecoul on his own rather than with Vaublanc, he chose to stay at an inn in town rather than at the Marquis' palace and he has close intimate relationships with humans, first with his late love and now with Mizrak. He also only drinks from poweful and privileged humans rather than commoners like his counterparts in France. He also doesn't appear to view humans as his inferiors and never uses the same language that his old world counterparts do to describe humanity. He also refers to both his vampiric life and life as a human when he talks to Mizrak.

Olrox has chosen humanity over his fellow vampires, at least the old world ones.

And what's interesting is that this is also what Alucard did over 300 years ago. And what Dracula began to do at the end of Castlevania when he wanted to go and live in Whitby with Lisa so that he could become a better person.

So it will be interesting to see how Olrox and Alucard interact when they first meet and potentially also how Olrox and Dracula could interact if they decide to reintroduce him at some point. Olrox might actually like them.

Let me talk about Mizrak

Yeah, this with all the entire Nocturne brainrot is going to continue for a couple more days at least. But the show has so many interesting themes and characters and I just love it so much. And after getting all my friends to watch the show, I got surprised by one of them being super angry about Mizrak.

Why? Well, because of the last scene with him and Olrox in the season and his words of: "You are just an animal that lost its soul centuries ago." And the friend considered that "being an asshole" and "cruel".

To which I say: Cruel? Yes. Asshole? No.

Let me explain.

First, let me make one thing clear: No, Mizrak is not a templar. I have seen that one too many times. He is not a templar. He is a monk knight of the order of St. John, so the Knights Hospitaller. Like the templars they were very much tied to the crusades originally, but they are not the same thing. There were a lot of orders and types of knights associated with the crusades. Templars were just one of them. (Do you guys wanna hear more about the templars? I can talk more about them.)

We know from bits and pieces of dialogue that Mizrak originates in Jerusalem (which is also where the order was founded). This is a gentle reminder: Israel as we know it today was not a thing back then. But Jerusalem was always a place of religious conflict as it holds importance in all three Abrahamic religions. Which was, what the crusades were all about after all. Before the time of the French Revolution, though, there was mostly some a conflict between the Ottomans and some Arab forces over Palestine. There were some Christian orders accepted within the city though.

Now, the Knights Hospitaller, who were accepted in Jerusalem, had a strong connection to France. Which... lead to problems, when some of the Arabs and the French got into problems. Which let to the Knights Hospitaller leaving for Malta. This too is referenced in the dialogue. (If you guys cannot tell: I am very happy with the amount of historical research put into this show!)

Mizrak looks to be in his early 30s. So I assume he entered the order in his mid-teens (which was a usual age to enter an order like that) and then probably left for Malta within a couple of years after that when the political situation got more charged. And then from Malta to France.

The Knights Hospitaller back then for all intent and purposes lived as militarized monks. That means they made vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. And this very much shines through with his character in so many scenes.

Of course we see that the entire "chastity" thing does not work out that well for him. But that is also why he clearly is shown to be conflicted about that entire thing. What he tries to uphold, though, is the obedience aspect of his vows. And that is, what his entire conflict is about.

See, what I love about this character is that there is all this delicious conflict.

I will iterate again: I grew up in a very, very conservative, strict, catholic household. Other kids got read fairytales for bedtime. My mother read me the bible. Priests and monks were people we intermingled with a lot. (Heck, the last pope? I met him when he was still a bishop.) And hence I got to make one very clear experience: There are three types of Catholics: Those, who focus on all the horrible things. Those, who focus on the literal stuff written in the bible. And those, who focus on the positive stuff. You know, the stuff with helping people, and being poor, and sharing, and being in general a good person. (Though the three types are not always mutually exclusive.)

And it is pretty clear that Mizrak is of the latter kind. He believes in the good he can do through his faith in God and Christ. But he has also grown up in an Order and a Church that puts a lot of focus on the idea of sin, on the idea of obedience, and the idea of the "natural order".

But there he is, with his Abbot collaborating with demons and vampires to enforce that "natural order", which among other things goes against their own vow of poverty. This is so clearly against Mizrak's believes. Because in his very core, Mizrak is a good fucking man. He is one of the good guys. Who wants to do good through his faith in God. And this conflicts for him.

So by the end of episode 7 he reached the point to go against his vow of obedience, because his faith in doing good was stronger, than his dedication to his vows. He very actively broke his vows in the eyes of his order, standing against his order, to protect those darn kids. Because it was the right thing to do. He is absolutely willing to do the noble sacrifice if that is what it takes to save those kids. And in comes that weird dude and takes this chance from him.

And his entire thing with Olrox... It seems very much that Mizrak is indeed gay. As the series so helpfully points out: Yeah, priests, monks, other clergy, and their vows of chastity were always a thing that rarely worked out. Again, as someone who grew up with close ties to the church: The fact that everyone is secretly fucking is... well known. As well as the fact that yeah, there are a lot of gay clergy. Mostly for the reason that they are shamed for their sexuality and then take the vows to not be tempted into homosexuality. Only to find that a priest school with a lot of other queer supressed men is exactly the place you do not want to be to not be tempted. (And that is all without going into all the non-con, pedophilia and what not. Things that were also already happening back then, I guarantee you.)

So, try to imagine that entire thing from Mizrak's perspective. There he is, already ashamed and suppressed about all of that and in comes this very, very seductive vampire man, who kinda seems to align with some of his values, but not with others. And who is emotionally unavailable as fuck, outright telling him that he does not love our dear Mizrak. Someone, who clearly is not for the vampires and your abbot, but also clearly not willing to take the other side. The side that you in your heart (even though it means standing against your order) know to be right. And this man, who claims to not love you, then comes in and tries to stop you from doing what is right.

Yeah, no fuck, Mizrak is a bit pissed at him. Especially as in that moment Olrox very clearly goes against Mizrak's ideals, that are all about self-sacrificially doing the right thing.

And I do think that Mizrak is right in one regard: Olrox lost his soul. He lost a part of himself. Through the trauma of colonialism, but he lost it never the less.

So, once more: Thanks the team for giving us another interesting, well-rounded religious character! CV already did so well with Isaac and Mizrak is sofar extremely promising in that regard.

So many of the conversations that Olrox has with other characters are incredibly interesting, with a lot of stuff hidden in between the lines.

One of my favourites is his conversation with Drolta at the graveyard. In their conversation you can see just how little Drolta knows about the New World and what happened there. She tells Olrox that they've seen empires rise and fall, unaware that the empire that Olrox saw fall was his own, talks about how fickle humans are and how they flit from one God to another, again unaware that Christianity was forced upon the Aztecs and many other cultures in the Americas in an attempt to wipe out the indigenous religions and gods.

And Olrox, being the intelligent man that he is, hears Drolta talking about her human life as a priestess of Sekhmet he decides to test Drolta by bringing up the fact that her goddess and her temples are now lost and buried.

And Drolta doesn't care, she doesn't feel that loss of her culture or her past. She isn't sad. But Olrox, a man who doesn't have that kind of belief and has never been particularly religious, you know that he feels the loss of the Aztec temples, that he is still saddened by the loss of his people's religion.

And then we get the line about making a new world, and Olrox states that he's heard that one before and Drolta states that let's make this one last. And again she hasn't done her homework as she doesn't realise that the last time Olrox heard that it would have been the Spanish as they conquered and almost wiped out his people.

It's yet another important difference between old world and new world vampires. The old simply don't take the time to learn and realise just how different the lives of vampires like Olrox are compared to theirs. They just simply assume that they are the same because they are vampires. But we can see from Olrox they couldn't be anymore different.

The Bishop in the first Castlevania season is pure evil who believes himself good. He's nearly every crime and hypocrisy of the Catholic Church distilled into one neat, wrinkly, putrid man. He is easy to hate. He is supposed to be despised and we are expected to cheer and rejoice when Blue Fangs chewed on half this man's face.

He uses god to control and manipulate the powers and people that be. While his belief in god may be true, the church and the faith are more tools for him to retain control. It is glaringly obvious that this man is power-hungry.

There is nothing, and I mean nothing at all redeemable about that asshole.

The Abbott is every conservative relative who genuinely loves you, but is a blind idiot holding on to institutions simply because they are "right".

While the Bishop's character is real, most of us won't encounter him. We see him on the news. I'm not even American (been there once for two weeks) but even I've seen his like on news and media. He's a televangelist who consolidates wealth, clout and power through the fanaticism of his followers. He is drunk on the authority he possesses. His belief in god isn't the point; whether or not he holds faith, the man cares solely about power.

The Abbott is someone in our lives we know well. Your conservative mother who refuses to even show a modicum of tolerance towards queer people. Your father who is buying into the religious side of Youtube and Tiktok. Your brother who has grown up to carry terrifying, fascistic beliefs. Your sister who feels lost and found some semblance of acceptance in a church who still believes women are lesser. Your aunt who despises vaccines. Your uncle who tells you that you should've become a priest or a soldier.

The Abbott, deep down, has some redeeming features. But it's not enough to forgive him for his idiocy.

Ask any child who had to grow up with a religious parent, especially a Catholic or an Evangelical. They fucking love the story of Abraham sacrificing his child to God, and finding a ram in its place.

Evangelicals are bent on this tale. They will always preach that god comes before children. That children and their suffering and their needs must always take a backseat to the word of god.

A trans child asking their parents to understand—their words will fall on deaf ears because god and the holy man told them that 'transgenderism' is a vile philosophy that seeks to groom and twist kids. A college freshman debating with their parents about free healthcare and immigration will be stonewalled because the charismatic preacher said that god will provide. god will heal. god did not invite these foreigners into this land.

It is Maria, begging her father to listen and having her pleas fall on deaf ears.

The Abbott is someone I hate more than the Bishop.

Men like the Bishop exist, but they are few and far in-between.

But the Abbott? The Abbott is someone I share a table with at dinner. He's someone I see during family reunions. He's someone who shares misinformation online, and I see it on my timeline because we're social media friends.

I fucking hate him so much and I hope he gets what's his.

He never deserved Tera. He never once deserved Maria.

The thing about Erzsebet is that she's a very unsubtle colonialism metaphor.

Olrox likens her to the Spaniards who invaded his land and slaughtered his people, She speaks of how she wants to conquer Europe and later the "New World" because she considers it her divine right to do so (The Manifest Destiny ideology that made invaders believe that they were divinely ordained to destroy the native population and settle on their land).

She tells the Night Creatures in episode 8 to silence Edouard's singing. During the French Revolution, music and songs were considered a fundamentally important part of it (him singing the songs he used to sing when he was a human could also symbolise his rebellion against his nature as a Night Creature, beings that were considered nothing but bloodthirsty, mindless monsters that held no memories of their past lives)

Even the great power she possesses is not her own, it was the blood of Sekhmet, an Egyptian goddess, another land she conquered and stole from (Drolta says that she was an Egyptian priestess in life, making me believe that Erzsebet was the one to turn her)

She promises slave-owning vampires that as their Messiah she will return the world to it's "natural order", where the slaves that revolted against them will become their property again.

This directly contradicts what Annette's mentor said. That slavery may seem like this practise that always existed to people like Annette who was born into a family of slaves, and lived the majority of her life in chains and people like Comte de Vaublanc who was likely born into a family of slaveowners, someone who spent his entire life enslaving and abusing people. But ultimately, humans did not come into this world as slaves and slaveowners. Turning slavery into something that is not natural and inevitable but rather a man-made evil that can be defeated.

Idk i noticed those things while watching the show and i saw no one in the tags talking about it so I decided to write down my thoughts.

Some historical context for Olrox

Okay, let me prephase this with one important message: Castlevania Nocturne made me really happy by making the plot all about colonialism, as colonialism and its fallout and how it influences us to this day is a topic that I am very passionate about. We do not talk enough about it. The US does not talk enough about it because it could make white people feel uncomfortable. And here in Germany we do not talk about it, because we act as if this had nothing to do with us at all.

But the show talks about it and I love it.

And I honestly also gotta say that I love that the BI_PoC character have a concrete cultural heritage. Olrox is Aztec, Annette is Yoruba, and Drolta is Egyptian. Other shows: Please take notes!

But let's talk Olrox, because he is so fucking interesting and amazing!

We know about him that he is Aztec and also that he is 250 years old. Or roughly that old by the time he kills Julia. Which would put either his birth or his turning somewhere around 1530.

Now, the fall of the Aztec Empire has a very exact date: August 13th, 1521. But you should keep in mind that this does not mean that on that day the Aztec's are extinct. To this day there is still 1,5 million people speaking Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, and preserving some of the Aztec cultural traditions. It was just that on that day the empire construct fell to Cortez and the Spaniad conquistadors and a lot of Aztecs went into exile to flee the genocide that Cortez was bringing upon them.

The question of course is: Was Olrox still human at this time or was he already a vampire? From his dialogue it is clear that he was at least alive and grown enough to remember the fall of the empire and the distruction Cortez and his men brought upon them. But you can bet it was very traumatic.

I also am assuming he was turned by a white man. Because so far my assumption is that vampirism is an old world thing that got brought to the new world through colonialism. (Mostly because in Dracula's court we do not see any new world vampires.)

Now, the other interesting thing is what he says about his dead lover. The one Julia killed. So, first the "town in Massachusetts" he speaks about is clearly Stockbridge. Which was the town in which many Mohicans have settled during the colonial times, as well as other people from the Iroquois Nations. Now, it should be noted that the Mohicans were not part of the Iroquois alliance and in fact went to war with the Iroquois, but by the time colonialism really geared up there was some cooperation between the Mohicans and Iroquois.

Due to this they were in an alliance with the Oneida (who were part of the Iroquois) by the time of the Revolutionary war. Now, the Revolutionary War created a lot of conflict between the Iroquois nations, because they did not agree which side they should fight on. Of course both sides promised that they could keep their land, but the Mohawk, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca did not trust the colonists and hence sided with the British, while the Oneida and Tuscarora (and through them also the Mohicans) sided with the Colonists.

And the dead lover clearly was among those siding with the colonists. Now, a quick refresher for the non-Americans (and the Americans who slept to history class, which is understandable). The Revolutionary War lasted from April 19, 1775 to September 3, 1783 (which, yes, also means that Julia and Richter probably were in the US during the war the entire time and the "evil" Julia was fighting probably was linked to it). And of course we all know how it ended for the Indigenous people: The colonists won, countless Indigenous folks died on both sides, only to get booted of their land soon after. The Oneida und Mohicans were made to move westwards not soon after the war ended. So, yes, Olrox would have seen that happen.

Now, an interesting thing in his dialogue was when Erzebet said: "We will create a new world." To which he replies: "I have heard that one before." And she says: "This time we are going to make it to last."

And the big question is to what this is refering. Is it refering to the colonialization or is it refering to the revolutionary war? Or something entirely different. In both cases it would be possible. And yes, the American Revolution definitely were claiming to create a new world. But was it that what he refered to or something else?

Well, never the less: Interesting character. Really good writing.

Immediately inspired by the new Castlevania Nocturne trailer and had to make my own rococo inspired vampire huntress, meet Sabine!

It just dawned on me that the Netflix “One Piece” show using the original anime voice actors for the Japanese dub is a lot more complex than it seems. At first glance, it looks like the voice actors are just reprising their roles. They are already familiar with their characters, so it shouldn’t be too difficult doing the dub.

What makes things complex is that, technically speaking, these aren’t their characters. When Mayumi Tanaka goes to voice Luffy in the anime, she’s only working off of the script and directions from the director. When Mayumi goes to voice Luffy in the live-action, she’s actually working off of Iñaki Godoy’s performance. Even if you’re the greatest actor in the world and can replicate another performance perfectly, there’s still going to be distinct differences that will make you stand out. These differences could be anything, from dialogue changes to make the pacing work for the show to Godoy’s own little nuances that he adds to his version of Luffy.

It’s strange to think that even though Mayumi Tanaka is doing the Japanese dub for Luffy, she has to approach the same character from a different angle since this isn’t her Luffy, it’s Godoy’s. Same goes for the entire cast and their respective characters. It’s like they’re starting fresh.

YEAHHH ! ONE PIECE LIVE ACTION !!

no but nami trying to get luffy and zoro to gas her fit up is so funny, her coming out doing little poses, the "well?? how do i look?" and luffy saying "you look like nami" and zoro's bitchy gay ass saying "i said i was wearing black"

this is my straw hat fucking crew bitch

here's are some of my favorite little things from the OP:LA

these behind the scenes are everything bro

saw a one piece live action character impressions post that pegged luffy as having daddy issues which is hilarious to me because luffy has, like, the opposite of daddy issues. he has daddy solutions. if you hang out with luffy long enough, your father-related angst starts to resolve. this has happened to multiple characters.

the live action was fun

East Blue Five!

I worked on this too long i can’t look at it anymore

Redraw of the panels that SHATTERED MY HEART o(；△；)o!!! OG panels + Opinions on the Luffy separation arc under read more

Hey there! My Monster Trio design is available ONLY TODAY at The Yetee on tees, longsleeves and tanktops! Grab yours HERE!!!!