Fanfic / Coby's Choice

Coby's Choice by SwordOfTheGods is a One Piece Alternate Universe fanfiction.

After witnessing the tyranny of 'Ax-Hand' Morgan, Coby's dreams of becoming a marine is shattered. Instead, he chooses to follow the person to show him kindness, Monkey D. Luffy. Featuring a larger crew and a more serious Luffy, this story will take a different path from canon.

The first volume, entitled Coby's Choice: Paradise is complete. It has a sequel, Coby's Choice 2: New World, New Choices, which picks up post-Time Skip.

Also has a NSFW side story, That Night in Skypia, which shows some of the sex scenes that are only implied in the main story.

---

Coby's Choice contains examples of:

Paradise

• Accent Slip-Up: Gin's homeland of Virgio Island has a culture and accent similar to the Appalachian region. When he joined the Krieg Pirates, he covered up his accent so his crewmates wouldn't bother him about it. After traveling with the Straw Hats and receiving encouragement from Amy, he starts speaking more in his native accent, especially after the Time Skip.
• Accidental Proposal: Amy does this to Gin while on Little East Blue, by offering to give him a last name, which counts as a proposal in his homeland.
• Action Dress Rip: Unlike canon, Nami doesn't bother changing out of her wedding dress on Thriller Bark, instead just ripping the hem so that she can fight.
• Adaptation Expansion: This story takes the whole Klabautermann concept further than canon did. In canon, the only known Klabautermann was Going Merry and the concept stopped being relevant after the Straw Hats leave Water 7 for new adventures. Here, Going Merry manages to live and gains a bounty poster, revealing their existence to the world. Inspired by her, Moby Dick manifests during the Marineford War, removing all remaining doubt in their existence and resulting in other Klabautermanns no longer being so hesitant to reveal their own existence to their own respective crews.
• Adaptational Badass: Many of the Straw Hats, both canon and otherwise become stronger.
  • Coby eats a Dinosaur Zoan and trains under Zoro while Gin eats Enel's Devil Fruit following their death.
  • Luffy starts using Haki on a subconscious level during his fight with Crocodile.
  • Kumadori is revealed to know Armament Haki, which allows him to fight Gin.
  • Helmeppo apprentices under Akainu, eats the Candy Logia, and is a Vice-Admiral by the Marineford arc. In terms of strength, he is far ahead of his canon version who is not even a captain.
  • Following the events of the Enies Lobby arc, Kaku teaches the rest of the Galley-La foremen how to use the Six Powers in order to prove the sincerity of his Heel–Face Turn.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • After realizing what Crocodile's plan would bring unto Alabasta, Miss Valentine's Day and Miss Goldenweek defect from Baroque Works and join the Straw Hats.
  • Finding his life as a Galley-La employee more fulfilling than as an assassin, Kaku leaves CP9 and helps the Straw Hats rescue Robin.
• Adaptational Job Change:
  • The biggest one is Coby deciding to join Luffy in becoming a pirate instead of becoming a Marine.
  • Zoro is explicitly the First Mate instead of his position as just a combatant in canon.
  • Helmeppo is a Vice-Admiral instead of his canon Marine rank.
• Adaptational Villainy: Without Coby or Garp's influence, Helmeppo takes in his father's and Akainu's teaching.
• Adaptational Wealth: The Straw Hats as a crew are richer than they were in canon. They manage to find and keep a lot of money treasure from the Dead End Adventure and Rainbow Mist arcs, and leave Skypiea with far more treasure than they did in the original story.
• Adaptation Name Change:
  • Retroactively for Miss Valentine's Day to Amy and Miss Goldenweek to Grace, since the story was written before the Vivre Cards with their real names were released.
  • Several epithets change:
    • Coby becomes known as "Tri-Horn" due to his Triceratops Devil Fruit.
    • The World Government changed Gin's original epithet of "Man-Demon" to "Electric Demon" following Enies Lobby.
    • Chopper becomes "Monster Doctor" due to Amy drunkenly sharing intel with a government agent meaning the World Government knows he's the crew's doctor and not a pet like they did in canon.
    • Like their real names, this applies retrospectively to Miss Valentine's and Miss Goldenweek's epithets where the Vivre Cards revealing their canon ones were only published after the story made new ones up. Valentine went from "Courier" to "Weightless Woman". Goldenweek went form "Flag-Bearer of Freedom" to "Mood Painter".
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
  • Compared to their canon status as just True Companions, Luffy and Nami become romantically involved after Arlong Park, sexually intimate after the events of Skypia and married during Thriller Bark.
  • In canon, Hancock is madly in love with Luffy because of his kindness while Luffy remains ignorant of her feelings and sees her as a good friend. Here, Hancock is trying to seduce him to prove that her beauty cannot be ignored, while Luffy is annoyed at her efforts because he is devoted to his wife Nami.
  • Coby and Helmeppo were friends in canon. Here, they are bitter enemies since without Coby's influence, Helmeppo becomes far worse and becomes a tyrannical Marine like other Absolute Justice Marines.
• Adaptational Wimp: The Logia class of Devil Fruits as a whole receive a nerf. Unlike canon, they cannot simply generate unlimited amounts of their element. They either have to stockpile it or take what is available from their surrounding environment.
• Adapted Out:
  • The Davy Back Fight is not present in the story.
  • Usopp leaving the crew is prevented thanks to a talk with Kaya helping him understand that the Going Merry is not equipped for lasting long in the Grand Line.
• Almighty Janitor:
  • Nami's official position on the Straw Hats is Navigator, but in day-to-day sailing, the rest of the crew, including Luffy and Zoro who as the Captain and the First Mate, should theoretically outrank her, defer to her guidance. She also carries a lot of influence by being Luffy's girlfriend, and later lover, then wife, which results in Luffy listening to her opinion on a lot of topics.
  • Coby's official position on the Straw Hats is Cabin Boy. In theory, he has no influence, but in practice, he is one of the more individually famous members of the Straw Hats and his morality guides the decision making of his crewmates, which results in Zoro attacking and killing a World Noble because they're scum and Luffy desiring to one day raid Mariejoes to free the slaves.
• Anti-Hero Team: Luffy admits to Smoker that he or most of his crew are not as heroic at heart like Coby, and many of his good deeds are done to protect his crewmates and loved ones rather than out of motivation for justice.
• Ascended Extra: Alongside Coby, we have Gin, Miss Valentine's Day, Miss Goldenweek, Merry, and Billy.
• Atrocious Alias: Usopp's epithet after Enies Lobby is "Long Nose". Both Usopp and his father are upset about it.
• Attractive Bent-Gender: During the fighting at Marineford, Ivankov accidentally turns Kizaru into a woman, who is apparently quite gorgeous.
• Badass Teacher: To help Coby become stronger, Zoro trains him in swordsmanship.
• Beta Couple: Primarily there is Coby and Grace. Other couples are Usopp/Kaya and Gin/Amy.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Many of the Straw Hats qualify, being extremely skilled pirates despite their quirks.
• Cannot Keep a Secret: Garp almost gives away the secret intelligence unit SWORD's existence when he distributes recruitment flyers for them.
• Casanova Wannabe: While Sanji is canonically a flirtatious pervert who constantly fails to score, here, those traits are played up and occasionally causes problems for the crew. Since the Straw Hats have more women than canon, Sanji is seen flirting more often, and none of the female Straw Hats have any interest in him. Him also constantly shouting for his female crewmates during the Strong World arc endangers Coby and Usopp the whole week they were stuck with him as he keeps alerting enemies to their location.
• Cassandra Truth: The World Government does not believe the Straw Hats when they say they got the Rumble-Rumble fruit from killing a guy with delusions of godhood while on a Sky Island even though this is the honest truth.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Impel Down's staff torture Coby, hoping to get information on the Straw Hats from him.
• Commonality Connection: Coby and Kaku bond over both of them being zoans who received mockery for how their hybrid forms look.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Sanji is jealous of Luffy's relationship with Nami which occasionally causes him to lash out. In at least one case when Luffy fell overboard, he hit Luffy repeatedly with the rudder because Nami wanted a romantic dinner with Luffy that night. He also almost assaults Luffy after learning that he and Nami had sex and had to be knocked out for it.
• Crying Wolf: In Episode of Merry, Kaku explains that some of Kalifa's complaints about sexual harassment were actually legitimate, but she complained over it over every innocuous thing that even her CP9 colleagues stopped believing her in the cases where it actually happened.
• Darker and Edgier: In spite of the Thou Shall Not Kill rule Luffy implemented, even Luffy acknowledges fully following this rule is highly unrealistic and sometimes, the Straw Hats do have to kill their enemies. Downplayed overall though as Luffy tries to keep enemy deaths to a minimum and the story remains idealistic like canon does.
• Dating Catwoman: While he's not on the World Government's good side either, it's safe to say that Kaku's relationship with Reiju becomes this after Germa's princess shows her true colors. Merry puts it best.
  Merry: Dear Goda. She double-crossed us and stole from us, and you're still smitten.
• Dead Guy Junior: Nami names hers and Luffy's son after Ace.
• Death by Adaptation: Many of the villains don't survive the Straw Hats this time.
  • Don Krieg is left to drown by Luffy and Sanji.
  • Kuromarimo is killed in battle against Coby.
  • Mr 5 died from illness while travelling from Little Garden to Alabasta.
  • Shura and his bird Fuza are defeated by Zoro and Robin, and are implied to have been eaten by the Sky Sharks.
  • Enel is beaten and killed by Gin. This allows his Devil Fruit to reincarnate into one of Nami's tangerines.
  • Nero's status in canon is unknown after Lucci threw him into the ocean. Here, Nero is explicitly killed on-screen by Lucci.
  • Captain Shuu was shot into the ocean by Usopp while saving Zoro.
  • Doctor Hogback is executed by Brook for his part in making the zombies of Thriller Bark.
  • Indigo is killed by Usopp during their clash with the Golden Lion Pirates.
  • Rosward and Shalria are killed by Kidd and Law.
• Didn't Think This Through: In one omake, Chopper gives Coby one of his Rumble Balls so his fellow Zoan can unlock more forms. Coby's first attemp ends up being a hybrid form with his horns too big and heavy to move. Chopper then realizes that he designed the Rumble Ball only for himself, a being with 60% reindeer DNA and 40% human DNA, while Coby is 60% human and 40% Triceratops. In other words, the current Rumble Ball won't work properly with Coby's body.
• Did You Die?: Some young kids in Little East Blue that Coby is telling stories of the Straw Hats adventures to asks if he died at Navarone.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?:
  • Gin kills Eneru while on Skypiea.
  • Due to being stronger, this time around, Bonney is unable to stop him and Zoro successfully attacks the World Noble Saint Charlos to the shock and horror of the entire Sabaody Archipelago.
  • As if refusing to be outdone by the First Mate of a rival pirate crew, Captains Eustass Kid and Trafalgar Law have killed the World Nobles Rosward and Shalria.
• Distressed Dude: Coby is captured by X. Drake and handed over to the Marines who take him to Impel Down and later marked for execution at Marineford alongside Ace. Thankfully, after a hard-fought battle, he is saved, but not without injuries.
• Dramatic Irony: Upon finding out that Reiju kissed Kaku, Merry remarks that Sanji would be jealous about how much better Kaku's luck with women is. Instead, Sanji would be upset at the giraffe Zoan for a very different reason.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Kalifa's Bubble Powers are able to mess with Gin's Electric powers. If Nami wasn't there, Kalifa would have beaten Gin.
• Empowered Badass Normal:
  • With the crew trapped in Navarone, Gin eats the Rumble-Rumble Fruit to help them break out.
  • While separated from the rest of the crew, Grace eats the Chem-Chem fruit to win her battle against Ms Saturday.
• Entertainingly Wrong: The World Government thinks Nami's ability to control the weather is from a Devil Fruit. A reasonable assumption, but it's completely wrong and Coby has no intention of correcting them.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Crocodile never stooped to slavery, and his organisation in fact freed Amy and Grace from slavery.
• Fisher King: Discussed. The citizens of Weatheria are pretty sure the storm that occurs while Nami is giving birth is because of her going through it. That the storm sparks lightning in time with Nami's screams is compelling, but the narrative leaves it unclear.
• The Force Is Strong with This One: Klabautermanns can sense the development of unformed members of their kind and generally detect each other at a distance.
• Groin Attack: Robin defeats Absalom by using her powers to kick him in the groin, correctly reasoning that in his effort to replace himself with the best parts of his defeated enemies, he also replaced that specific body part with something extra sensitive. And since Luffy has a no-killing rule, Robin instead decides to "help" Absalom overcome this weakness by removing said body part.
• Happily Married: Luffy and Nami officially marry each other on Thriller Bark and are very happy with each other with minimal drama outside of the canon two-year separation which was an absolute necessity for the crew to train to survive the New World.
• Honey Trap: Reiju is tasked by Germa 66 to infiltrate Galley La for knowledge on the Six Powers from Kaku and succeeds by getting a date from him where she asks for the written instructions.
• Honorary Uncle: Merry the ship sees Usopp as this, given his relationship with Kaya and her being the mistress of her creator, Merry the butler.
• Humanity Ensues:
  • Iceberg is able to convert Going Merry's keel into a heart pendant that contains Merry's spirit, allowing her Klabautermann to fully manifest as a physical being.
  • Similarly, the Moby Dick's Klabautermann manifests when the ship is destroyed at Marineford, turning a portion of his mast into a heart in order to survive the ship burning.
• Hypocrisy Nod: Sengoku acknowledges the hypocrisy of the Marines in letting the World Nobles get away with blatant crimes, but believes it to be a necessary evil for the greater good since he believes the Marines can't do their jobs without their support.
• I Have You Now, My Pretty: Discussed. As part of taunting Luffy, Helmeppo threatens to make Nami his personal bitch and defile her. The taunt backfires since the threat causes Luffy to subconsciously trigger his Conquerors, overwhelming Helmeppo with pure rage.
• In Spite of a Nail:
  • In spite of Usopp not being there with him, Sheppard still gets called Condoriano as part of a ruse to make the Marines think he's with the Straw Hats to maintain Robin's cover. It just happens to be Coby who makes it up instead.
  • In spite of the different circumstances of the Straw Hats first visit to Water 7, the Franky Family still attack Usopp and steal money from the Straw Hat Pirates, resulting in the Straw Hats still launching a retaliatory attack against them.
  • In spite of being an overall more powerful crew by the time they reach Sabaody, the Straw Hats still suffer a major defeat on the archipelago and are scattered across the world by Kuma.
  • Ace is still killed during the War of the Best in spite of the odds being better for various reasons, up to and including Moby Dick's spirit joining the fray. The author, however, was somewhat hesitant to decide whether or not to do it and thus left it to a poll.
  • Coby still awakens his Haki at Marineford in spite of the very different reasons he's there.
• Instant Waking Skills:
  • After Grace and Coby are rendered unconscious by having their shadows stolen, Nami wakes them up by telling the former that her art is terrible and the latter that someone is trying to marry Grace. They both immediately jump up, wide awake and angry.
  • When Luffy is knocked out during the fighting at Marineford, Coby wakes him up by saying that Sanji is flirting with Nami.
• Internal Reveal: The Red Hair Pirates learn about Nami and her relationship with Luffy when they see her bounty poster.
• Killed Offscreen: Mr 5's death is not shown. Only mentioned by Mr 3 when he tries to explain things to Crocodile.
• Lemon: A group of stories are gathered under the title That Night in Skypia that serve as the fanfic's repository of these kinds of scenes. Some are canon and some are non-canon.
• Knows the Ropes: Going Merry adopts Paulie's fighting style of using ropes in combat since she can telekinetically control them.
• Magic Pants: Chopper theorizes that the very reason this trope exists for Zoans is because their Devil Fruit powers exert a small zone of effect when they transform, causing their clothes to transform with them.
• Making Love in All the Wrong Places: Luffy and Nami, in order to scratch off Nami's "Honeymoon Bucket List", have sex in the tangerine grove on Little East Blue. Although, while the couple did find the thrill of being caught exciting, it was a little too stimulating and put the possibility of anything similar happening on hold for the moment.
• Male Gaze: Luffy develops this around Nami.
• Mark of Shame: Coby, who was taught by Zoro and has the belief that scars on a swordsman's back are this, has his back whipped, branded and given all kinds of other forms of torture during his time in Impel Down. Worse is that a good portion of those scars are where his Straw Hat Tattoo was.
• Mind over Matter: One of the abilities of a Klabautermann is the ability to telekinetically control anything you'd expect to find on a ship, such as cannonballs. These items don't even have to be on the actual ship for the Klabautermann to exert their power, so they can manipulate cannonballs fired at them.
• Name That Unfolds Like Lotus Blossom: Billy's names for everyone tend to be descriptions of them. Luffy is "Alpha-Immune-to-Shock", Zoro is "Angry-Moss-Cuts-Things", Chopper is "Deer-is-Person", etc.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore: Going Merry's bounty poster, proof of the existence of Klabautermanns, forever changed sailing, since now everyone has incentive to treat their ships with love and care to encourage their development.
• Official Couple: Luffy and Nami get together at the end of the Arlong Park Arc. And during Thriller Bark, they officially get married.
• Oh, My Gods!: Goda, the Author of Fate (an obvious reference to Eiichiro Oda), is an In-Universe god and when people feel the need, they invoke his name.
• Oh, No... Not Again!:
  • During the Thriller Bark arc, Usopp is worried they all got eaten by a giant creature again.
  • Kaku, Paulie and Merry are not looking forward to informing Iceberg that it turns out his new secretary is yet another spy.
• Point of Divergence:
  • The starting premise: because of Ax-Hand Morgan's tyranny, Coby's dreams to become a marine are shattered, and he instead chooses to help Luffy become the pirate king.
  • Ms Valentine Day's defection from Baroque Works to the Straw Hats results in her confronting Mr 4 and Ms Merry Christmas alongside Usopp and Chopper and is the one to defeat them both.
  • Coby and Grace being there with Vivi allows her to successfully defuse tensions between the Royal and Rebel armies before blood could be spilt and Amy is able to pick out the Baroque Work infiltrators on both sides.
  • Without Coby's influence, Helmeppo takes a different path as a marine. He is scouted by Akainu and follows his ideals.
  • Amy ends up revealing details about her crewmates during the Post-Enies Loby Celebration, including Chopper being their doctor, which is present on his larger bounty. However, when Hogback is killed by Brook, Moria targets Chopper (or more specifically his shadow) as a replacement.
  • Thanks to Luffy's Adaptational Badass granting him rudimentary Observation Haki by the time of Thriller Bark, Moria can't capture him to give his shadow to Oars. Instead, he sends his Spider-Mice to capture Franky instead, using his Shadow to bring the Super giant to life.
  • Gin takes Zoro's place in taking on all the pain Luffy had that Kuma pushed out.
  • The Going Merry's survival by manifesting as a physical being inspires the Moby Dick to do the same at Marineford, where Whitebeard appoints him the new captain of the Whitebeard Pirates as he prepares to face his own death. Under Moby's leadership, the crew is still intact and protecting Fishman Island post-Time Skip.
  • Between Luffy saying he hates him at Sabaody, and Ace's "The Reason You Suck" Speech at Marineford, Garp is so emotionally broken that he can't bring himself to join in the fighting against Whitebeard. He does join in near the end, but only in order to restrain Sengoku from attacking Luffy and Ace.
  • Akainu accidentally destroys Whitebeard's body before Blackbeard can steal the Tremor-Tremor Fruit from it.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Eneru is a sexist on top of all of his other bad qualities.
• Power Misidentification: The World Government mistakenly assumes Nami's ability to control the weather is Devil-Fruit based instead of technological-based. The Straw Hats did not intend to mislead the World Government on this, but Coby has no intention of correcting their misconception of Nami's powers.
• The Power of Hate: Luffy hits Garp with a Fist of Hate attack at Sabaody, channeling his rage for Garp's part in the Straw Hats being separated. The thought that his grandson hates him is enough to leave Garp emotionally broken.
• Price on Their Head:
  • Following their victory over the Arlong Pirates, Luffy gets his canon bounty of 30,000,000 while Zoro gains an earlier bounty of 20,000,000. Gin keeps his canon bounty of 12,000,000.
  • Following their victory over Baroque Works, Luffy and Zoro gain their canon bounties of 100,000,000 and 60,000,000 respectively, Gin gets his bounty raised to 30,000,000 and Coby gains a bounty of 10,000,000.
  • Following their successful invasion of Enies Lobby and their victory over Cipher Pol 9, Luffy, Zoro, Usopp, Sanji, Robin, and Franky all gain their canon bounty figures. Nami's and Chopper's bounties are higher than canon being 30,000,000 and 25,000,000 respectively. Coby's and Gin's bounties are raised to 65,000,000 and 100,000,000 respectively. Grace and Amy gain the bounties of 20,000,000 and 28,000,000 respectively. Merry's bounty is released later and starts at 15,000,000.
• Protectorate: Like canon, islands under the protection of a pirate crew (usually Emperor crews) fly the flag of their protectors in exchange for providing tribute in some form. Unlike canon, the Straw Hats start doing this while still in the Paradise half of the Grand Line, before they reach Skypiea, to protect their home islands from attack.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Ace gives one to Garp at Marineford for his horrible parenting, which includes, among other things, calling him out for his insane belief that his grandsons would be Marines when the Marines serve a corrupt aristocracy that (seemingly) murdered Sabo and they are allowed to get away with it no matter how blatant their crimes.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: After Smoker is forced to admit to Sengoku he is hesitant in trying to capture the Straw Hat Pirates, Sengoku issues him with an ultimatum where one of his possible choices is that he gets reassigned to G-5, the Marine Base with the highest casualty rate in the New World.
• Related in the Adaptation: Amy and Grace are adopted siblings in this continuity.
• Relationship Upgrade: Luffy and Nami start dating after she gives him a Big Damn Kiss in thanks for defeating Arlong, becoming increasingly flirtatious around each other until becoming each other's first time after defeating Eneru in Skypeia. And during Thriller Bark, they get married after Luffy defeats Absalom and then decides to hijack the wedding ceremony he tried to force Nami into.
• Sapient Ship: Like canon, a ship can gain life from its crew. Unlike canon, the existence of Klabautermanns become public knowledge after the publication of Going Merry's bounty poster and that in turn inspiring Moby Dick to reveal himself at Marineford. Since the entire battle was broadcasted, Moby Dick manifesting removes any possible doubt in their existence.
• The Scapegoat: Because Zoro was sent off by Kuma, his punishment for attacking a Celestial Dragon will be fulfilled by another: his apprentice Coby.
• Screaming Birth: Justified, as Nami gives birth to her and Luffy's son, Ace, far away from any form of proper medical facilities and with only a nurse to act as a midwife.
• Ship Tease: Besides the existing pairings, there is also some attraction between Zoro and Robin. When Robin is hugging everyone, the narration draws attention to the fact that Robin hugs Zoro longer than the rest of the crew.
• Shock and Awe: Gin eats the Rumble-Rumble fruit after it reincarnates following Eneru's death.
• Shout-Out:
  • Merry scares the G-8 Marines by threatening them with the line "Part of the crew, part of the ship".
  • The Popeye comics are name-dropped while the Straw Hats are in Water 7.
  • Miltia and Melanie and their boss Junior are all directly pulled from RWBY. Additionally, one of the crews at Sabaody Archipelago is the "Crescent Blades" lead by "Ruby of the Sea" Roseanne, a fairly obvious reference to Ruby Rose and her scythe/sniper rifle hybrid Crescent Rose.
  • On the topic of crews in Sabaody Archipelago, one of the crews is the "Yellow Coats" led by "Curiosity" George, and one of the captains is Sparrow of the Carribean.
  • A pair of guards named Jessie and James appear in Impel Down. They even have their own motto.
  • Merry taunts Corto by saying "¡Tu madre era un hámster y tu padre olía a saúco!". Translated from Spanish, it means "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled like an elderberry!"
• Shipper on Deck: Sanji aside, most of Luffy's and Nami's friends and relatives are supportive of their relationship.
• Side Bet: Garp starts a betting pool on his grandson being in a relationship and won. He then makes a new betting pool on whether his grandson and his girlfriend did the deed and won that too.
• Skewed Priorities: When Spandam accidentally triggers the Buster Call on Enies Lobby, he refuses to rescind it since that would make him the laughing-stock of Marineford. He does not care that he might accidentally destroy one of the World Government's most important islands, his promotion is at stake here.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Captain Morgan hardly has a role at all, only being talked about with no on-screen appearance, but his corruption is the cause of Coby's faith in the Marines shattering and causing him to continue sailing under Luffy.
• Spared by the Adaptation: With the help of Franky and Galley-Law, Merry's keel is converted into a heart that lets her take a human form.
• Spider-Sense: Klabautermanns have a specialized sense where they can detect their crew and how they're doing, and only for their crew.
• Split Personality: Gin develops a more violent alter ego called Rum around the end of Thriller Bark. Technically it's existed since his childhood, but his near death via Kuma is what allows Rum to manifest and take control of their body at times.
• Somebody Doesn't Love Raymond: Hancock is so used to being fawned over my men and women the world over that Luffy not doing it is a huge blow to her pride. She starts making attempts to seduce him to rectify this and revalidate her world-view, uncaring that he is married and devoted to Nami, but the attempts are far from appreciated.
• Stronger with Age: All other things being equal, the older a Klabautermann, the more powerful that Klabautermann is.
• Sympathy for the Devil: Played with since it's a Hero Antagonist feeling this way towards a protagonist more moral than his highest superiors, but Smoker sympathises a lot with Coby, seeing him as a good person, and tries to numb the potential pain of his execution by refusing to use his name.
• Tattooed Crook: All the Straw Hats have tattoos of their personal Jolly Rogers somewhere on their body.
• Their First Time: Luffy and Nami have sex for the first time in Skypiea after slipping away from the celebration of Eneru's defeat.
• Theseus' Ship Paradox: Played differently from canon. Like canon, ships can form Klabautermann spirits. Unlike canon, those Klabautermann spirits can survive the destruction of the majority of their physical body if they manage to transfer their essence into a single surviving part before then. They can also transfer their essence into a completely new part through a relatively simple process. This means that Coby's Choice has a solution to the paradox. The actual physical ships are important yes, but what's even more important is the Klabautermann spirit of the ship. The ship does not truly die until the Klabautermann does.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Luffy himself is against killing, (or rather, attacking with the intention to kill or executing a person already defeated) having to establish it as a rule after Gin killed an enemy marine. However, he knows that he and the others will have to kill if it is the only way to save their friends. In these rare cases, Luffy can lift the killing ban, and if Luffy lifts the killing ban, serious stuff is about to go down.
• Touché: Gin questions Luffy's decision to untie Mr 9 and Miss Wednesday to allow them to eat with the Straw Hats, prompting Zoro to remind him that Gin first met them under similar circumstances which Gin concedes to.
• Trap Is the Only Option: During the G-8 arc, when Robin, Zoro and Coby reach an empty bridge, they realise it's a trap but not having any other choice, they elect to spring the trap.
• Unholy Matrimony: Played with. Luffy and Nami aren't evil at all, but the world at large don't realise that, and they are still pirates, meaning their happy marriage is this from the world's perspective since all they see is a union between two infamous pirates.
• Villain Respect: Crocodile may not like Luffy, Coby or Whitebeard, but he respects them a lot more than anyone on the World Government's payroll.
• Weather Manipulation: Nami can control the weather and is so good at it that the World Government thinks it's from a Devil Fruit power instead of the Clima-Tact which is a replicable invention.
• Wedding Episode: After stopping Absalom's attempt to force Nami into marriage, Luffy decides to take advantage of the setup to make his and Nami's relationship official.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Grace's attempt to place a Color Trap on Jabra is interrupted by a stray bee, which she is greatly allergic to.
• Won't Take "Yes" for an Answer: When the Franky Family begs to join the Straw Hats' rescue mission to Enies Lobby, Luffy says "ok". Zanbai continues begging before it sinks in Luffy said "ok".
• World's Strongest Man: Moby Dick claims to be the strongest Klabautermann in the world, with only Red Force coming close to him.
• You Are in Command Now: Whitebeard's last order to his crew is to appoint Moby Dick as the new captain.
• You Remind Me of X: While in Little East Blue, Coby meets natives from his own island who notices his resemblance to his parents. The woman in charge tells him they would be proud of him.

New World, New Choices

Note. Spoilers for Paradise will be unmarked.

• Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder: Discussed. Sandersonia brings up the possibility of Nami being unfaithful to Luffy during the Time Skip to prevent Hancock from collapsing into despair from having to accept the reality that there is a man who does not want her.
• Actually Pretty Funny:
  • The Fake Nami aside, Luffy finds it funny that people were trying to impersonate him and his crew.
  • Zephyr has to try real hard to not laugh when he discovers that Ivankov turned Kizaru into a woman.
• Adaptational Badass: After shaking off his drunkenness to take his fight with Zoro seriously, Hyouzou proves himself capable of living up to his title of Fishman Island's greatest swordsman, actually fighting Zoro evenly.
• Adaptation Deviation: In addition to Robin, Zoro is also turned into a toy, and both spend quite a bit of time as toys unlike canon where Robin manages to turn back to normal quickly.
• Adaptation Expansion:
  • The concept of Klabautermanns is pushed even further in the sequel. Though rarer than with pirate ships, Marine ships can also have their own spirits and one Marine Klabautermann is responsible for Kaku having to flee Water 7. Crews allied to the Straw Hats also have their own Klabautermanns like Polar Tang of the Heart Pirates. There are also enemy Klabautermanns, such as Flying Dutchman who manifests himself in defence of Vander Decken, and Wake Breaker, the Klabautermann of the Neo-Marines flagship.
  • The story provides more details about why Homing left the World Nobles. Apparently, his father had a Fishman friend (Dellinger's grandfather) who was a bard who told Homing all sorts of stories.
• Adaptation Name Change: The name of Z's flagship changed from White Tiger to Wake Breaker.
• Adaptational Job Change: Downplayed. Smoker is still a Marine, but instead of holding a Vice-Admiral rank after the Time Skip, he is still a Commodore due to his known sympathies towards the Straw Hat Pirates.
• Adaptational Wealth: Nojiko and Cocoyashi Village as a whole is richer due to Nojiko's tangerines becoming a major export during the Time Skip.
• All Your Powers Combined:
  • Played With regarding Luffy and Nami's son Ace. In addition to inheriting the Will of D from his father, everyone notes that he'll probably end being taught all of the other Straw Hats respective skills.
  • Flying Dutchman has most of the combat skills of all his previous captains before Vander Decken the Ninth and all of their combined might. He laments not having Fishman Karate due to Decken III practicing the art away from the ship.
• Almighty Janitor: Smoker regularly duels with Vice-Admirals, but because of his sympathies to the Straw Hat crew, he is prevented from being promoted that high, instead keeping his pre-time skip rank of Commodore.
• Ambiguous Syntax: When Garp first informs Sengoku he is now a great-grandfather, Sengoku hopes he is talking about the quality of his child-raising skills. Garp quickly dashes those hopes when he clarifies that his grandkid now has a child of his own.
• Atrocious Alias:
  • Sanji teaches Ace to call Zoro "Uncle Stupid Moss". Zoro retaliates by teaching him to call Sanji "Uncle Pervy Cook".
  • To Smoker's constant consternation, several of the Straw Hats calls him Smokey. When he hears Luffy call Law "Traffy", he is both empathetic to him and glad the bad nicknames aren't unique to him.
• Attack Its Weak Point: A Klabautermann cannot be permanently defeated by attacking their manifestation. They can still feel pain from their manifestation being attacked, but they can recover since that's not their real body. An opponent has to attack the ship itself to cause damage. Transferring their essence to a small part of the ship can allow the Klabautermann to survive the destruction of the rest of their body, but if that small part gets destroyed, the Klabautermann dies.
• Badass Boast: In their confrontation, Zoro tells Hody he literally ate scarier things than him for breakfast.
• Behemoth Battle:
  • Chopper in his Monster Point vs Surume.
  • The General Franky vs Jell of the New Fishman Pirates.
• Berserk Button: Harming or threatening Ace is a surefire way to earn the Straw Hats' wrath.
• Big "WHAT?!":
  • Sengoku gives one of these, after an escalating series of flat ones, when Garp gives him a series of Internal Reveals about Luffy's son and Kuma's true loyalties.
  • Sanji's reaction to finding out that Luffy and Nami have a son.
• Bigotry Exception: Downplayed. Hody still considers Caribou trash simply because he's human, but finds Caribou useful enough for his plans to allow him and his crew some leeway he does not give to other humans.
• Blood Knight: Flying Dutchman loves the thrill of battle and killing due to a previous captain of his being bloodthirsty.
• Boxed Crook: After his defeat, Hyouzou is made part of the Ryugyu Kingdom's military forces, but with some Devil-Fruit enforced restrictions placed on him on account of him previously working for Hody.
• Brawn Hilda: Petunia, also known as Tune, one of the few women in the G-5 Marines, looks incredibly masculine and is hard to distinguish from the actual men. Only her voice gives away her gender.
• By-the-Book Cop: Momonga insists on following proper procedure for captured pirates, and this includes insisting they actually stand trial before being executed barring allowable circumstances. He is furious when someone attacks Panz in violation of protocol when he is already a prisoner.
• Cassandra Truth: Woop Slap dismisses stories of islands in the sky, men who can cut ships in half with butterknives, and other stuff about the weirdness of the Grand Line and the strength of the elite of the world as fantasy instead of fact.
• Category Traitor: Hody considers every Fishmen or Merfolk willing to be friends with humans to be a traitor to their race, and he takes specific issue with Hachi who was once part of the Arlong Pirates and had renounced the toxic ideology Arlong spouted.
• Character Exaggeration: The Barto Pirates personality trait of being Straw Hat fanatics are made more extreme here.
• Chekhov's Gun: The importance of the IQ plant does not stop with the end of Strong World. Some of it made its way to Punk Hazard where Velo used it in her monster creations.
• Clandestine Chemist: Zeo has the chemistry smarts to make modifications to the drugs stolen from the Ryugu family.
• Cliffhanger: The final chapter of the Fishman Island arc ends with the reveal that everyone has forgotten about Jimbei.
• Closest Thing We Got: Gin uses his electric senses as a substitute for Observation Haki. It's not as good, but with his access to Observation controlled by Rum, in his specific case, it's more available.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Coby's reaction when one of his horns gets snapped off during a fight with one of the monsters on Punk Hazard.
  Coby: Mother-bastard-shit-ass-inbred-celestial-lizard-bitch!
• Conveniently an Orphan: Lampshaded. Chopper notices most of the Straw Hats except Ace and maybe Brook are orphans one way or another and wonders if orphans are just plain more likely to become pirates to begin with.
• Confronting Your Imposter: Played with. Most of the real Straw Hats are fine with the fakes using their names, even Luffy. Some think it'd take the heat of them when they set sail while Luffy himself just doesn't care. However, Luffy specifically finds the fake Nami an insult to his wife and goes with them to ruin their plans in retaliation.
• Contrived Coincidence:
  • Through pure chance, Sanji manages to miss that Luffy and Nami now have a son while on their way down to Fishman Island.
  Robin: Currently, Sanji is still unaware of Ace's birth. As if by serendipity, all times when Ace was shown to the crew, Sanji was elsewhere or indisposed.
  • Caeser Clown thinks Grace's presence on Punk Hazard with a Devil Fruit that so completely counters his own to be so improbable that he considers divine intervention as the only possible explanation.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Sanji is still this towards Luffy, which becomes especially problematic when they have a kid to save and Sanji is in denial that Luffy and Nami have a son together and freezes every time their son is mentioned. It takes seeing Ace with his own eyes for him to get over it.
• Curse Cut Short: In order to avoid Ace learning expletives, many of the Straw Hats who almost use them cut themselves short or are interrupted by others.
• Dartboard of Hate: Hancock has been firing arrows at Nami's bounty poster during the Time Skip in frustration of Luffy's devotion to her.
• Death by Adaptation:
  • Dosun and Daruma are killed by Coby and Merry, respectfully, during the showdown between their crews.
  • Hody is critically wounded during his Final Battle with Luffy and Rum, and dies from a combination of his wounds and overdosing on the Energy Steroids.
  • The Minister of the Left dies from wounds inflicted by Hody.
  • Weevil was killed by the New Whitebeard Pirates during the Time Skip for claiming to be Whitebeard's son.
  • Brownbeard is disassembled by Law, and then frozen by Monet.
  • Ucy is killed by Hakuba during the Dressrosa Tournament.
  • Gladius is killed by Law after getting his heart back.
• Didn't Think This Through: Gin causes a power surge to disable the traps in Caesar's lab not realizing it'd take the lights out too. Sanji outright tells him that it wasn't his best plan.
• Drama-Preserving Handicap: Under normal circumstances, it would have been easy for Grace and Chopper to deal with the addictions of the children kidnapped and experimented on by Caesar with Grace's Devil Fruit, but because Law swapped bodies around so that Grace is in Zoro's body and Billy is in hers, they don't have the easy solution of curing them then and there.
• Dumb Muscle: Jell of the New Fishman Pirates is powerful, but is incapable of thought. Rum describes him as "no more than a walking, breathing weapon, barely sentient in his own right."
• Dying Declaration of Hate: Knowing he has little time left, Flying Dutchman makes clear to Fukaboshi how much he hates him and the royal family before sacrificing himself in one last-ditched attempt to kill Fukaboshi.
• Easy Impersonation: Lampshaded. The Fake Straw Hats look very little like the real deal, but the real Merry thinks the Marines would fall for the ruse anyway since she believes the local Marines are that stupid. Kaku spotting Marines tailing the fakes validates this belief.
  Luffy: Shishishishi! If you're gonna fake being me, at least try to look like me!
  Albion: That's the real Straw Hat! That means he didn't become fat and ugly! This guy was just fat and ugly to begin with!
• Eating the Eye Candy: The Kuja pirates really appreciate how great the men of the Straw Hats look.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Sanji's flame attacks is able to make Caribou's mud dry up, negating a lot of the threat he'd otherwise pose as a Logia.
• Engagement Challenge: Played With. Vander Decken thinks Shirahoshi's family refuses to let him marry her because he's too weak, and so, decides to become stronger, become the King of Pirates, and offer the One Piece as a dowry as a self-imposed challenge, under the belief this will finally earn him their blessing.
• Entertainingly Wrong: Even after two years, the World Government still thinks that Nami's abilities come from a Devil Fruit, to her bemusement when she hears about it on Punk Hazard.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Even several members of the New Fishman Pirates flinch over making Ace cry. Shame over making any child cry transcends species.
  • Rum is an Ax-Crazy Blood Knight, but he's still dumbfounded to realize that Hody's anti-human campaign is being done solely For the Evulz, since he feels that this kind of violence should have a reason for it.
  • Ain is horrified when she realizes she almost used her powers on Ace, who due to his young age would have been erased from existence.
  • Grace is no fan of the World Government's laws, but as a chemist she acknowledges how dangerous NHC10 is and respects the ban on it, saying that even if she had a full lab to work with, she would never use it.
• Evil Is Petty: According to Smoker, Helmeppo tried to bombard Shells Town after becoming Vice-Admiral as revenge for perceived slights against him in the past and the only reason Helmeppo couldn't follow through on that is because Admiral Fujitora put a stop to that.
• Exact Words: Madam Finwaters asks for details on the Straw Hats' various Devil Fruit powers as part of their deal with her. Amy does so, explicitly refusing to explain Kaku's Devil Fruit power on grounds that he is not a Straw Hat and the powers of her crewmates that are not from Devil Fruits since Madam Finwaters did not actually specifically ask for it. Madam Finwaters respects the fact Amy is following only the letter of their arrangement.
• Eye Scream: Amy shoots a rock into Wadatsumi's eye when he tries to breach the Sunny's coating bubble.
• Famed In-Story:
  • The Straw Hats as a whole are more notable right at the end of the Time Skip compared to when they reunited in canon. Having a larger crew, with crew members who are individually famous with the public being aware of more details about them and a captain capable of leading them through even more unprecedented incidents than canon (some filler arcs and movies were incorporated into the story) has resulted in them having larger reputations compared to canon.
  • Grace becomes famous independently of her status as a Straw Hat during the Time Skip when she becomes a famous art-thief known as the Magpie of Colour. By the end of the Time Skip, she sends a picture so that she can be properly credited as the art thief as well as being a Straw Hat.
  • While the Straw Hats are world-famous post-Time Skip, Going Merry is uniquely notable as the first confirmed, documented and recorded Klabautermann in history. A fact that makes Caribou giddy at the potential price she'd fetch on the slave market.
• Fantasy Contraception: Due to the Chem-Chem Fruit, Grace has enough control over her own bio-chemistry that she and Coby do not have to worry about pregnancy should they do the deed.
• Fire-Breathing Diner: Coby does this to himself with some of Usopp's tabasco on Punk Hazard in order to weaponize it against a hive-minded swarm of monster centipedes.
• Fire-Breathing Weapon: Turns out Franky and Galley-La had installed an omni-directional flamethrower on Thousand Sunny. Franky never brought it up until Fishman Island where they use it against the New Fishman Pirates.
• Foreshadowing: While on Fishman Island, Sanji thinks that Luffy having a child would make headline news. Sure enough, when they're in the New World proper, the newspaper releases an emergency edition informing the world about Monkey D. Ace.
• Forgot About His Powers: Justified. Because of their long separation where their Transponder Snails were out of range from each other and not really usable, the Straw Hats don't immediately think to use them when they get separated upon their arrival to Fishman Island. To be fair, some of them eventually realise that they could make calls now that they are on a single island.
• Gaining the Will to Kill: Shirahoshi seeing Decken hurt her brother enrages her so much that the normally soft and pacifistic princess sics Sea Kings on him.
• Godzilla Threshold: Gin grants Rum control of their body to fight Hody long enough for Luffy to recover and rejoin the battle.
• Gondor Calls for Aid: Like canon, the people who helped the Straw Hats during their separation help them escape the Marines on Sabaody. With the expanded crew, this includes the monks of Berka, Miltia and Melanie, Myukuru of the Big Mom Pirates, and the former Mr 6 pair of Baroque Works. Unlike canon, Boa Hancock and the Kuja Pirates are not included due to Hancock's frustrations with her continued failures to seduce Luffy resulting in them leaving before they can help.
• Groin Attack: Robin subtly threatens Coby with this when he's teasing her about her UST with Zoro.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Kaku tags along with the Straw Hats after he is forced to run for it when the Marines find out he was at Water 7 and tells them it is just temporary.
• Healing Factor: Velo's crab-eel monsters have a limited regenerative ability, able to regrow lost body parts at the cost of body mass.
• Heroic BSoD: Genzo faints, foaming at the mouth, when he learns of Ace's existence.
• Holding Back the Phlebotinum: Rum controls Gin's access to Observation Haki and blocks his access out of frustration with Gin refusing to take the path in life Rum wants.
• Honorary Uncle: All the Straw Hats are this, and honorary aunts, to Nami and Luffy's son Ace. Except for Brook, who's an honorary grandpa due to his age.
• Hostage Situation: Hody succeeds in taking King Neptune, Princess Shirahoshi, and their soldiers prisoner and demands that the citizens of Fishman Island bring him the Straw Hats if they want the royals to live. The Straw Hats battle them and they succeed in rescuing most of the hostages, but the New Fishman Pirates escape with some of the soldiers and Ace. Ace is eventually rescued, but it turns out Hody also has Hachi prisoner.
• Humongous Mecha: The General Franky, as per canon, with the added twist here of being piloted by the Thousand Sunny's Klabautermann.
• Hypocrite: Grace calls Zeo a hypocrite for having anti-human beliefs and yet using science developed by humans in his anti-human crusade.
• I Want Them Alive!: Ace's bounty poster notes that the bounty is conditional on him being brought in alive.
• Impostor Forgot One Detail: Inverted. Luffy notes that the hair is the only thing the Fake Straw Hats got right in their, frankly, lousy attempt to impersonate the real deal.
• In Spite of a Nail:
  • In spite of the Straw Hats having more members, the Fake Straw Hats still try their impersonation scheme and the conspiracy is larger to accommodate having more people to impersonate.
  • Law is still a Warlord post-time skip in spite of having killed World Nobles. Smoker reveals that it turns out he got a pardon for that specific crime.
• In-Joke: Kaku and Merry chuckle whenever they hear the word "trap" for some inexplicable reason only they know.
• Innocent Swearing: Ace mimics Gin calling Nami a badass. Nami is less than pleased Gin taught her son swear words so young.
• Insistent Terminology: Kaku is constantly stating that he's only a tagalong for the Straw Hats, not a member.
• Inspirational Insult: Franky insulting the G-5 Marines for how weak they are gets them to double their efforts in fixing Thousand Sunny.
• Internal Reformist: After Sakazuki's ascension to Fleet Admiral, Sengoku, fearing the Marines will become even worse, creates DAGGER. Standing for "Division Against Gruesome Governance, Enforcement, and Rule", they are meant to combat corruption and extremism in the Marines.
• Internal Reveal:
  • Sengoku learns about Luffy's and Nami's son Ace when Garp gushes about his great-grandson to him; in that same conversation, he also learns Kuma was a revolutionary and was passing information to Dragon for years. Later, the World Government makes sure the whole world knows about Ace by getting Morgans to publish a special edition on the Straw Hats' return and issuing a bounty for him.
  • Smoker learns Luffy is connected to Sabo in Chapter 51 of Book 2.
  • Tashigi learns about Vivi's connection to the Straw Hats in Chapter 55.
• Irony: Zeo likes the irony of chemistry books penned by human authors being used to destroy the human race.
• Irrational Hatred: Flying Dutchman hates the Ryugu Kingdom's royal family for the Decken line becoming obsessed with them even though this was completely outside their control.
• It Amused Me: The reason Madam Finwaters has a knowledge broking business is not to make money. That's just a good side-benefit. The actual reason is because she gets bored and loves gossiping and uses that knowledge to get more entertainment.
• It's All About Me: Even after two years of Luffy firmly rejecting her advances due to his loyalty to Nami, Hancock is still determined to break the two up so that she can have Luffy to herself, stating that beautiful people like herself should always get what they want.
• It Runs in the Family: According to Garp, in the Monkey family it's common for high intelligence to skip a generation, which is why he and Luffy are so stupid but Dragon is such a genius, meaning that Luffy's son Ace is likely to be just as brilliant.
• It's Personal: After his first defeat at Zoro's hands, Hyouzou stops caring about the money and wants to settle the score with Zoro.
• Joke and Receive: Franky jokes to Amy about one of their crew needing to marry someone, which makes her very nervous as Amy was in Big Mom's territory and had to promise Sanji to one of her daughters to avoid getting killed.
• Just Following Orders: Most Marines don't like protecting the Celestial Dragons. They do it because they have no choice.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: Smoker reveals that during the Time Skip, Captain Nezumi failed a surprise audit and was arrested when his corrupt dealings were exposed.
• Know When to Fold 'Em:
  • The members of the New Fishman Pirates who fight Gin surrender to him when they realise they can't hurt him and that there are many more logia users like him on the surface that they have no hope of beating without Armament Haki.
  • At least one more member tries to quit when he sees just how outclassed they are by the Straw Hats which also invalidates any sense of superiority, but is killed by Hyouzou.
  • Hyouzou ultimately gives up after realizing he can't beat Zoro even with Energy Steroids giving him a boost.
• Knowledge Broker: Madam Finwaters of the red-light district trades information. Apparently, she likes to think of herself as someone who turned her love of gossiping into a profitable business.
• Lampshade Hanging: Coby questions how Usopp's plants are able to rapidly grow from seeds into megafloras when there's a lack of available nutrients. Merry tells him to not question it.
• Large and in Charge: Luffy lampshades while on Punk Hazard that in his experience, if there's one large guy surrounded by a lot of smaller guys, the large one is in charge.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: When the Straw Hats crash into Fishman Island, Sanji takes head trauma that makes him forget everything except his name and the fact that he was traveling with other people. Fortunately, just hearing the name "Straw Hat Pirates" is enough of a trigger to restore his memories.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler:
  • Luffy and Nami being married. While it was a big development when it happened during Thriller Bark, here, the fact they are married is brought up during the first chapter of the sequel.
  • The existence of Luffy's and Nami's son. While her pregnancy was hinted at from the Sabaody arc onwards in the first story, it wasn't confirmed until she gave birth in the epilogue. Here, little Ace shows up with Nami right in the first scene.
  • Moby Dick being the new captain of the Whitebeard Pirates. While his reveal was shocking at the time of the Marineford war, he is now globally known and is the reason why there is no dispute on the fact Klabautermanns exist.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In Chapter 44 of Book 2, when Nami says she wants to be on the same page as the Marines, Gin jokingly says they're all on "Page 653, chapter 44, book two" as a joke.
• Let's You and Him Fight: Kin'emon's reaction to seeing Kaku's full Man-Beast form is to assume he's a Beast Pirate and attack him.
• Literal Disarming: Fore rips off Merry's arm during their fight.
• Locked Out of the Loop:
  • Sanji constantly running from the citizens of the Kamabakka Kingdom has left him little time for anything other than training and basic self-care, leaving him rather uninformed of the going-ons of the world while separated from the rest of his crew as he explains to Namur. He also thinks several other members of the crew had similar problems with keeping themselves informed.
  • Smoker keeps Tashigi away from the truth of the corruption of the Marines and the World Government as well as his own opinion that perhaps it is too deep-rooted to be saved because he fears her faith in the Marines won't just crack but break and make her go full revolutionary.
• Ludicrous Gibs: Merry defeats Daruma by reducing herself back into her Heart, letting him eat it, and then reforming her human body inside him, causing him to explode.
• MacGuffin Super-Person: The Straw Hats as a whole are highly sought after by various forces for their strength and potential, with SWORD spies reporting they have heard the crew being called the Chosen. The Marines are after their heads. Other major factions want to recruit them.
• Magically-Binding Contract: Madam Finwaters ate the Deal-Deal Fruit, which allows her to make binding contracts with non-standard collateral such as Kaku's voice or magically enforcing loyalty, or at least, preventing treason, from Hyouzou when King Neptune decides to allow a different form of punishment for him.
• Maker of Monsters: Velo, an Original Character introduced during the Punk Hazard arc, is a scientist who is able to create monsters inspired by Lovecraft. These monsters cause the Punk Hazard incident to be a lot harder for the Straw Hats in spite of their greater numbers and strength.
• Mama Bear: Nami becomes downright terrifying when anything threatens Ace. Her motherly instincts also prompt her to help the kids on Punk Hazard.
• Million to One Chance: Though Klabautermanns are widely known after the Marineford War due to Moby Dick manifesting himself while everything is broadcasted to the world, they are still relatively rare. Few ships have them, and for Marines, the number drops even further. Kaku had the sheer bad luck to inspect one of the few Marine ships with a Klabautermann, forcing him to run for it, leaving behind his position at Galley-La again even though he reconciled with them and loved that job.
• The Mole: Caesar has multiple subordinates that are actually spies for other parties. In addition to the canonical Monet, Velo turns out to be one of Kaido's spies.
• Mook Horror Show: When Monet forces Velo to order her monsters to rampage, Caesar's other subordinates proceed to get slaughtered by creatures inspired by Lovecraftian horrors.
• Mr. Exposition: Madam Finwaters gives Kaku, Usopp and Amy details on the factions of Fishman Island.
• Mushroom Samba: Ace has one of these as a result of inhaling delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, the main psychoactive component of cannabis courtesy of Ceasar Clown, having a fittingly food-themed hallucination.
• My Biological Clock Is Ticking: It's implied that the reason that Vivi preemptively asked Kohza to marry her was a mixture of mild baby envy towards Nami and finding out that a mild exposure to the same poison that caused King Cobra's Rapid Aging may have caused her own lifespan to be cut short.
• My Master, Right or Wrong: While the Klabautermann of the Flying Dutchman might not consider Vander Decken IX the best captain he had, Decken is still his captain, and thus the Dutchman will aid his captain in battle.
• Named by the Adaptation: Turns out Kaku's family name is Savano.
• No-Sell: While on Punk Hazard, the Snipe that Coby's group is fighting somehow finds a way to hide from his Observation Haki.
• No Sense of Direction:
  • Zoro, of course. Taken to its extreme on Fishman Island, where he disappears from right in front of Chopper and Grace and reappears somewhere else that's nowhere near where he was.
  • Unfortunately for Merry, she absorbed Zoro's terrible sense of direction. At least she knows about it as of Fishman Island.
• Noodle Incident: Apparently, while staying with the Big Mom pirates, some gorillas fell in love with Amy.
• Not in Front of the Kid: Most of the crew make an effort to keep their languages clean in front of Ace. Gin forgot to do this and Nami is upset when Ace copies him.
• Not So Above It All: Any conception of Kaku not having any personality quirks is destroyed when he gushes over a Sea King that has the upper body of a giraffe.
• Not-So-Imaginary Friend: In their first day in the New World, while Sanji is teaching Ace how to cook a tall dish of food vanishes when the cook is looking away, with the only hint being the dash of sauce on Ace's cheek. Ace claims that he only ate half of the dish while his friend Lily ate the other half, which Sanji suspects to be a childish lie. Though it's not long until he and Kaku see the food being devoured by the microscopic giant Lily.
• Oh, Crap!: Caribou's reaction when he realizes that the old man who just showed up on his ship is Garp.
• Oh, My Gods!: Flying Dutchman invokes Calypso's name in prayer.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Luffy is so overwhelmed with emotion at meeting his son for the first time that he actually forgets about the food he was about to eat.
• Papa Wolf: Luffy is furious over the New Fishman Pirates endangering his son.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Luffy's "Lucy" disguise is even more flimsy than canon. His undisguised son Ace openly calls him dad, and anyone who recognises the Heir of Chaos from his wanted poster will realise Lucy is actually Luffy if they haven't seen through it already.
• The Pardon: For some inexplicable reason that Smoker himself doesn't understand, Kidd and Law were given pardons for their murders of two Celestial Dragons.
• Patchwork Fic: One of the competitors in Dressrosa's coloseum is an aged William D. Chapstain of the Devil's Luck Pirates. Additionally, it's brought up that the previous user of the Flame-Flame Fruit before Ace was Blake of the Eight Flames and the Black Knight, whereas William recalls he once thought a group of men were narrating his life.
• Point of Divergence:
  • Whitebeard appointing Moby Dick as his successor allows the Whitebeard Pirates to remain a viable crew and they retain a lot of territory, including Fishman Island.
  • The canon plot of the Sabaody Arc being derailed by Zoro successfully assaulting a World Noble prevents Nami from learning how badly Fishmen are persecuted which would in turn lead to her keeping her distrust of Fishmen by the time they are on Fishman Island. She only starts letting go of it after Namur tells her Fishman Island's long history of being on the receiving end of prejudice.
  • Madam Finwaters reveals Sanji's family history to the rest of the Straw Hats while they're on Fishman Island.
  • Ace befriending Lily results in him stopping most of the fight she has with the Straw Hats when they find her eating their food.
  • Instead of Nami, Chopper, Robin and Brook, Ain's age regression powers are used on Usopp, Amy and Gin.
  • Because it's Zoro, Grace and Billy that first encounter Law on Punk Hazard, they're the ones that get hit by his shambles and body-swapped.
  • The presence of Velo at Punk Hazard causes several changes:
    • The monsters she created are an additional hazard for the Straw Hat Pirates and their allies to deal with, leading to an overall harder time for them.
    • Her figuring out and improving on the artifical Devil Fruit formula results in Monet deciding they don't need Caesar anymore and Monet kidnapping Velo to Dressrosa, derailing Law's own plans since that was reliant on Caesar being worth something to Doflamingo.
  • Doflamingo offering Whitebeard's Devil Fruit causes even more competitors to come to Dressrosa.
  • Jonathan being there with Fujitora means Doflamingo's men don't get to cheat him out of his gambling winnings.
• Power at a Price: The Dauntless Dragon Super Mode shortens the user's life span.
• Price on Their Head:
  • Kaku turns out to have a bounty of 76,000,000 for his desertion of Cipher Pol 9.
  • Following their actions at the Saboady Archipelago and the Marineford War, Luffy gains his canon bounty of 400,000,000 while Zoro and Coby had their bounties raised to 175,000,000 and 99,000,000 respectively.
  • Because of her independent actions as an art thief, Grace's bounty is raised to 55,000,000 during the Time Skip.
  • After the Marines discover his existence, they issue a bounty of 57,000,000 on Luffy's and Nami's son Ace.
  • When Billy is identified as a Straw Hat, they issue a bounty of 17,000,000 for him.
  • After the events of Punk Hazard, Law gets 460,000,000 following the revocation of his Warlord title while his ally Luffy gets 470,000,000. Nami's is raised to 47,000,000 and she's upset she's worth less than her own less than two-years-old son. Zoro and Gin are both raised to 210,000,000 each while Sanji gets 130,000,000. Kaku breaks the 100,000,000 mark by getting 104,000,000. Chopper is wanted for 32,000,000 and wanted for 61,000,000. Amyis raised to 43,000,000. Billy is now wanted for 20,000,000. Coby is worth 129,000,000. Merry is worth 79,000,000 and she's upset that she, the first confirmed Wood Fairy, has such a low bounty.
• Propaganda Machine: Based on what Tashigi thinks happened to Ohara, the World Government covered up their destruction of it as the scholars trying to turn themselves into demons to overthrow them.
• Rapid Aging: It's revealed that a downplayed version of this is the cause of King Cobra's illness — a poison that Crocodile slipped into his food over a period of time has caused his body to age at a faster pace than normal, leading to him suffering ailments of old age while still middle-aged. Vivi was also mildly exposed, so it's believed that her lifespan will be similarly cut short, but not as badly as Cobra's.
• Realpolitik: While in an Enemy Mine with them on Punk Hazard, Smoker points the Straw Hats in the direction of Doflamingo on Dressrosa, since he hates the latter's corruption but legally can't do anything about it himself.
• Recognition Failure: The Fake Straw Hats completely fail to recognise the real Nami, going as far as to threaten her without ever realising who she is. Nami actually lampshades their sheer stupidity. It's justified when they don't recognise Luffy since he was wearing a disguise, but that does not stop Caribou from lampshading the hilarity.
  Caribou: Hahaha! A fake tried to shoot the guy he was copying, but it doesn't work on him! Hahaha! Coribou, are you seeing this shit?
• Red Baron:
  • Madam Finwaters casually reveals that Billy has earned the epithet "Thunderbird" at some point over the Time Skip.
  • Ace gets dubbed the "Heir of Chaos" after the Marines learn of his existence.
• Reincarnation: Monkey D. Ace is strongly implied to be the reincarnation of his adoptive uncle Portgas D. Ace. Namur at least thinks that's the case after hearing about the boy.
• I Reject Your Reality: When he finally learns about Luffy and Nami having a son, Sanji goes into deep denial, convincing himself that everyone is pranking him and trying to actively block out any mention of Ace when he comes up. It takes actually seeing Ace with his own eyes for him to finally accept it.
• Resignations Not Accepted: If an individual Marine has a Devil Fruit and/or the rank of Captain or higher, quitting isn't that simple. Devil Fruits are an important source of power and high-ranking Marines often know secrets the top brass don't want leaking out. The best they'll get is retiring to a pre-approved Island. Otherwise, they just get reassigned doing things that don't involve going to the front lines.
• Revealing Skill: When Merry recognized Wyrm is using Paper Art, she realizes he must be a Marine since the World Government has a near monopoly on the Six Powers.
• Sapient Ship: Though the crew's forced separation stunted her growth, their reunification allows Thousand Sunny to be capable of speech while they're at Fishman Island. By the time they leave, she fully capable of independently moving each part of her ship body.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Realizing that Amy's Armament Haki can counter his Logia abilities, and that she's not buying his Blatant Lies about why he's working with Hody, Caribou decides to flee Fishman Island. He and Coribou refer to this as "plan: fuck this, we're leaving!"
• Secret-Keeper: Garp knew about Ace months before the Straw Hats reunite, but Nami swears him to secrecy until they do.
• Secret Underground Passage: Hody had Daruma dig a whole network of underground tunnels below the surface of Fishman Island.
• Seduction-Proof Marriage: Every attempt Hancock makes at seducing Luffy fails due to his devotion to his wife.
• Shout-Out:
  • The Fake Nami tries to convince Luffy she's the real one by saying that she's "the greatest ''good'' he's ever gonna get."
  • The Klabautermann of the Flying Dutchman has an appearance based on Davy Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean. He even prays to Calypso instead of Goda like most other characters, even Fishmen, do.
  • Several to This Bites!:
    • One of the New Fishman Pirates spouts the mistaken belief that Going Merry is able to manifest as a humanoid due to eating a Devil Fruit. One of his companions informs him that this is the wrong reality.
    • The Cloth-Cloth Fruit is name-dropped in Chapter 52.
  • Franky brings up feeding Ace spinach to make him a strong sailor.
  • Shuzo's reaction to losing his arm in battle is to claim it's "just a flesh wound".
  • Brownbeard mentions that two of the other monsters were a a bipedal fire-breathing turtle that only turned into a skeleton after being dumped in lava and a flower that enjoyed taunting them when they attacked and running away while having a sharp-toothed grin.
  • One of the antagonists of the Punk Hazard arc is Doctor Velori Velo of the (defunct) Lovecraft Institute of Medicine and Research. The monsters she makes are abominations on par with what Lovecraft created.
  • One of Velo's past creations is mentioned to have been a "monstrous, barrel-throwing gorilla".
  • Coby paraphrases Doofenshmirtz when he says he would have two Berries for every time he was attacked by a two-headed lizard, which isn't a lot but it's weird it happened twice.
  • One of the competitors in A-block is "Black-Cat" Belladonna, pretty obviously themed around Blake Belladonna. She has a mostly black ensemble, has the Cat-Cat Fruit: Model Panther to reference Blake being a Cat Faunus, and was a member of the Crescent Blade pirates captained by Roseanne, a reference to her team leader Ruby.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: Hody's attempt to shit-talk Portgas D. Ace results in Luffy immediately punching the crap out of him.
• Side Bet: The other Straw Hats had a betting pool over if and when Coby and Grace would get together. When they do so upon reuniting after the Time Skip, Nami wins (technically Zoro does too, but Nami claims his winnings as part of his debt).
• Simple Solution Won't Work: Amy asks Smoker why he doesn't just quit the Marines given his reservations about the corruption in it, and he explains that he can't. He has a Devil Fruit and he knows secrets. If he wants to quit, he either has to go to a pre-approved Island or take up an assignment away from the front lines. Trying to leave anyway will result in a bounty on his head.
• The Smurfette Principle: Subverted compared to canon with G-5. In canon, Tashigi is the only female member of the G-5 Marines. In this fanfic, there is at least one other woman with her in G-5. She just happens to be manly-looking.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Monet escapes from Punk Hazard with Velo and Vergo, instead of having her heart accidentally stabbed by Caesar. Vergo also survives the Punk Hazard arc.
• The Speechless: Madam Finwaters has access to a power that allows her to take the ability of speech from others such as Kaku. Specifically, it's the Deal-Deal Fruit, and she took Kaku's voice as collateral when her bargain couldn't be completed, and eventually gives it back when she's suitably entertained.
• Spit Take: Coby's reaction to hearing Zoro spent the Time Skip training under Mihawk.
• Split-Personality Merge: For a brief moment, when Gin almost suffers a lethal blow, he and Rum resonate and act as one. When it's over, Rum warns that such resonance will be rare due to their wildly differing ideologies.
• Spotting the Thread: When Robin is turned into a toy and Zoro forgets about her, he notices oddities in his memories and wonders why they would raid Enies Lobby for Franky when at the time, they didn't know him that well.
• The Spymaster: Madam Finwaters becomes the Ryugyu Kingdom's spymaster in exchange for noble title and official reign over her district.
• Stating the Simple Solution: During the fighting in the Ryugu palace, Hody angrily demands to know why none of his minions have swum over the Straw Hats' barricade instead of trying to rush past it on foot. Apparently that didn't occur to any of them.
• Steven Ulysses Perhero: Lampshaded. Ace questions why Smoker's name matches his powers, and wonders if it was on purpose. Smoker claims it was coincidence on his part, but does state it may be an act of Goda that his name and powers match.
• Stupid Evil: The New Fishman Pirates Officers destroy important Fishman Island infrastructure. Infrastructure that would have been useful in their crusade against humans, but they aren't smart enough to realise they're shooting themselves in the foot.
• Super Mode: Members of the Ryugu Kingdom's royal family can enter a state called the Dauntless Dragon that is the perfect version of the boost from the special drugs they keep. It was developed by their founder during the Void Century to reduce the odds of being usurped.
• Taking You with Me: Flying Dutchman destroys his body in one last attempt to kill Fukaboshi.
• Tempting Fate:
  • Coby calls out Luffy for doing this when the crew is heading towards Fishman Island and he says that nothing could go wrong. Naturally, they're attacked right afterwards.
  • Coby gets mad at Tashigi for wondering if things could get worse only for the lizard monster they are fighting to assimilate body parts from its prey.
• These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know:
  • Chopper once tried to examine how Luffy eats and was comatose for three days afterwards.
  • There is apparently a supernatural element to Zoro's ability to get lost that most mortal minds reject to maintain their sanity. Ace, being a toddler, is able to see what happens as he is not able to comprehend that it should be impossible.
• These Hands Have Killed: Merry is shellshocked after killing Daruma.
• This Is Gonna Suck: Sengoku thinks that the existence of Monkey D. Ace and how he will learn to read the Poneglyphs and the true history from Robin can spell only doom for the World Government.
• To Serve Man: Many of the more bigoted Fishmen eat humans. Other Fishmen, like Namur, are disgusted by this practice.
• Too Kinky to Torture: The Manias created by Dr. Velo are not only impervious to pain, but actually seem to enjoy it.
• Too Much Information: When Robin alludes to the Groin Attack she pulled on Franky during his recruitment in order to subtly threaten Coby after he teases her about her feelings for Zoro, the onlooking Billy and Tashigi both decide they don't need to know the details.
• Tragic Keepsake: Luffy gets his brother's hat in the aftermath of his death. Upon learning he's a father, he bequeaths the hat to his son.
• Trauma Button: Sanji shivers in fear every time he remembers what he went through on Kamabakka Kingdom.
• Traveling at the Speed of Plot: Lampshaded and justified. Smoker is ordered to head straight to Punk Hazard while the Neo-Marines incident is ongoing. In the meantime, the Straw Hats were dealing with the Neo-Marines. Which is why it is a surprise to him and Tashigi that the Straw Hats arrived at Punk Hazard first. Turns out Smoker and Tashigi had to deal with a lot of delays and speedbumps on the way to Punk Hazard which included storms, dealing with pirates on the way, resupplying, and hangovers of the crew from the resupply.
• Troll: Coby briefly has fun with Tashigi by honestly answering her question with a simple yes without going into detail and letting her stew for a few seconds before he then goes into detail.
• Unbalanced By Rival's Kid: Learning of the existence of Luffy's and Nami's son causes a huge shock to Sanji due to his own affections for Nami. Actually meeting Ace allows Sanji to get over it.
• Undying Loyalty: The Flying Dutchman admits Decken the Ninth is far from the best captain he's had, but he's still the captain and will fight for him to the end.
• The Unmasqued World: Klabautermanns as a whole stopped going out of their way to keep themselves hidden after the actions of Going Merry and Moby Dick combined exposed their existence without any room for doubt.
• Un-person: The end of the Fishman Island arc reveals that no one remembers Jimbei, at all. It is to the point people think there have only been Six Warlords instead of Seven.
• Unstoppable Rage: Shirahoshi is so enraged by Decken wounding her brother that she becomes completely consumed by her Poseidon powers and starts having the Sea Kings attack everything around her in a blind rage.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: A chemistry book written by Grace is used by Zeo to help him improve on the drugs stolen from the Ryugu family.
• Villain Respect: Hyouzou learns to respect Zoro's strength and ideals after his initial defeat at the latter's hands.
• Wacky Marriage Proposal: Subverted. Kohza had a whole plan for proposing to Vivi involving the Sand-Sand Clan, the Super Sonic Duck Squadron and the Festival of Sed, but Vivi derails the whole thing when she proposes to Kohza before he has the chance to do that.
• Waking Non Sequitur:
  • When Brook wakes him up after being knocked unconscious by the crash-landing into Fishman Island, Coby blurts out that he didn't take the last bag of chips.
  • When jerking awake from a nap, Garp yells out "Not the platinum marshmallow!"
• Warrior Monk: During the Time Skip, Gin becomes a monk, and just like the rest of the crew spends the two years training to be an even stronger fighter.
• We Have Reserves: Kaido does not mind sending his men to be experimented on by Velo, viewing them as expendable.
• Wham Line: Right after the Straw Hats leave Fishman Island in chapter 26, a runner under King Neptune runs over and tells them that while searching through the treasure lot, they found a letter addressed to Luffy but can't recognize the sender. When Manboshi and Namur open and read the letter, they can't recognize it either but find out it was from someone claiming to be an ally of Luffy in the War of the Best and planned to meet him and his crew in the New World. And then Namur says the sender's name in confusion.

Neptune: You were there, Namur. Do you know him?
Namur: Afraid not. That's weird, though. I knew every pirate at the war, personally or second-hand, but I don't know the name.
Neptune: Who is it, jamon?
Namur: I'm not sure, some guy named Jimbe^note Who as a former warlord, an ally of Whitebeard and Luffy, and a former Captain of the Royal Guard, is someone they all should have known in a normal situation.

• Worf Had the Flu: Played with. Zoro is unable to fight at his best while he's stuck in Billy's body. Too bad for the Marines that tried to challenge him with this handicap that he's still good enough to easily beat them.
• Worthy Opponent:
  • Hyouzou's renewed convictions as a swordsman for their rematch earns him Zoro's respect, enough for him to use all three of his blades against him. After Hyouzou ultimately surrenders, Zoro promises to return and face him again after defeating Mihawk.
  • Fore of the New Fishman Pirates and Merry also respect each other's strengths in their own battle.
• You Are a Credit to Your Race: Zeo is able to look past the fact that the authors of his chemistry books are humans and appreciates the knowledges he gains from it.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: After determining that Velo knows how to create SMILE, Monet and Vergo decide that they don't need Caesar anymore. So they abduct Velo, while unleashing all her monsters to rampage and wipe out everyone on Punk Hazard.
• You Killed My Father: Belladonna's grudge against William stems from the fact that he and his crew murdered her Aunt Cleo and led to the death of her uncle Blake.

---