User blog comment:Plainblack/Feedback/@comment-6920514-20130521162911/@comment-90.216.86.171-20130521230509

O.K., last idea, I'm havin' that because it'll be so much fun!! I plan on this being a character study, by the way for onpiece.wikia.com on masse, do you all want to be my beta? I'll post my drafts on here and you can give me ideas before I finalise the chapters? Just an idea.

Anyway, Luffy may one day have a crew, but not in the first half of the Grand Line, I really want to look at the psychological repercussions of three scenes in One Piece, fisrt, Luffy to Ace in their flashback, after Bluejam's goon beat Luffy nearly to death, he said "Because I got nobody else!! I can't go back to Windmill Village, and I hate bandits! If I can't follow you I'll be all alone... I don't want to be alone, I hate it more than being hurt!" This is the first scene that I'll be using as a blueprint for my Luffy's psychological profile, obviously it won't be a constant theme, he'll still be excitable and oxymoronically naive and astute, but this to me is a big part of his drive, of how he defines freedom, having his nakama. I want to see how he is without them, or more importantly, losing them... which brings me to my next scene.

Again in the flashback, but towards the end. "Ace, I... I want to get stronger!! I wanna be lots, lots, lots, lots, lots, lots, lots, lots, lots, lots, lots, lots, lots stronger (That's thirteen lots and some would argue, crazy conspirators that they are, that Oda was telling us how many Strawhats there will be minus Luffy, or even how many of them will die... anyway, back to quote) So there won't be anything I can't protect!! And nobody'll ever have to go away again!! So please... don't die... Ace!!" Here we saw for the first time the reason behind Luffy's maniacal need to get stronger, to protect his friends. So, in an act that a part of me that worships Luffy as everything that the human soul should aspire to be loathes and is disgusted with me, I plan to give him nakama and then kill them off over and over throughout the Grand Line (which is how I refer to the first half, I know some say paradise but I feel silly when I do, so...). I want to explore how this would affect his development, and not use it to make him super-strong either, which is why the final scene is so important.

From the same part of the manga, but just after the flashback ends. "Me, become King of the Pirates?! I'm so weak!! I'm so weak, I couldn't protect anyone!!" After what was to us almost three years, from Sabondy to timeskip, of getting his ass handed to him again and again, losing his crew, Bon-chan and then Ace, Luffy loses faith in himself. I'm gonna look at this, at how he deals with failure and how he 'bounces back,' pun intended, and how it affects him. I don't plan to change the character a lot, after all I don't think post-timeskip Luffy is all that different presonality-wise to pre-timeskip Luffy, but still, he'll react in extreme ways to certain types of situation.

To answer your other questions, briefly you'll either be glad or sad to hear, Ace's story will be different, but whether or not he'll survive I'm not telling you, not yet. I will say, however, that this isn't a 'fix-up' fic where I attempt to fix One Piece and make the characters lives perfect, becuase that would be sacrilege in my eyes, like changing Shakespeare or Wilde, I'm utterly serious. Ace's story will still be heartbreaking, if I'm lucky, but for different reasons. Yeah, me, be brief? I bet none of you were fooled.XD

Lastly, Only 4 of the Strawhats are so far definitely going to be pirates and only three will definitely not be...so yeah, Franky and one other are undecided. One of the pirates will join a supernovas crew, one, and this will be such fun, will be a shichibukai! The other two will be big enough fish in their own rights as well. One of the crew will join the marines. And one will be sort-of a revolutionary. There, questions almost answered! I should be a gorosei! :p Thanks to everyone for their Feedback, ha!