Luz Looks Like Casca Wearing Her Ballroom Gown.

Luz looks like Casca wearing her ballroom gown.

Talking with @philuz about ‘Labyrinth’ AUs, so here’s Luz in a fancy Emperor’s Coven ballroom gown a-la ‘As The World Falls Down’.

I was originally going to draw her in a Grom-esque mash-up of both Jareth and Sarah’s outfits in that scene, but then I decided I really wanted to draw a sparkly dress. O_O Sorry, Luz, you can be a fashion icon next time.

Monkey D. Luffy: The Solar King of One Piece

We all know that Luffy was always associated with the sun in some way and here I will explain this connection and how even this is present in mythology and alchemy:

Let's start with Luffy's birthplace Foosha Village ubicated in Dawn Island, East Blue. We know that dawn refers to the moment when the sun rises.

In the Skypia arc Shandia worships the Sun God. Skypieans and Shandia prayed for the Sun God to act, at the same time that Luffy punched Enel and rang the bell through the sky. And in this arc is where we are introduced to Joy Boy, known as the Sun God. At this moment we are shown that Luffy has a connection with Joy Boy and to make it more evident they show us the silhouettes of both that are practically the same. Considering the later revelation that the fruit Luffy consumed is the same one that Joy Boy AKA the Sun God Nika consumed 800 years ago makes it seem like Luffy, the true "deity" defeated Enel, a false deity, as a result of the skypieans and Shandia prayers to the Sun God in general.

Then in the Water 7 arc Going Merry is destroyed and Franky builds the new ship which is called Thousand Sunny.

Later in Fish-man Island arc we learn that the fishman dreams of one day living in the sunlight (we found out later that Joy Boy made a promise to the mermaid princess and possibly living in the sunlight this is the promise). We also learn of Fisher Tiger, a former fishman slave who went to Mary Geoise to free the fishman enslaved there as well as free other slaves there including Boa Hancock and her sisters Sandersonia and Marigold. After his attack on Mary Geoise, Fisher Tiger, together with the fishman he freed, founded the Sun Pirates, 

a group of which Jinbe was part of and came to lead after Fisher Tiger's death , who later would be one of the Warlords of the Sea, while Arlong, another member, deserted after Jinbe became warlord and because his anger over Fisher Tiger's death, he with his original pirate crew goes to East Blue and terrorized Nami's village for years. The connection that the Sun Pirates have with Luffy is that Luffy confronts Arlong and defeats him, achieving the freedom of Nami and her village and as a result Nami joins his crew as a navigator and Jinbe saves his life several times and in the end of Whole Cake arc officially he joins Luffy's crew.

In Wano Country arc we find out that Luffy's fruit is not Gomu Gomu no mi but the Hito Hito no mi, model: Nika and that Joy Boy was the previous user of said fruit. And in this arc Luffy manages to awaken the fruit from him, defeats Kaido and brings a new dawn for Wano.

Now I will mention something that may seem insignificant to the point of going unnoticed and it's Luffy and the sunflowers. In an SBS Oda revealed that the flower representing Luffy is the sunflower, this is so true in Dressrosa arc Luffy wears a sunflower print t-shirt. 

This flower gets its name from its ability to follow the path of the sun as it turns in search of sunlight and also was used as the representation of the solar deity in many of the Amerindian cultures, mainly among the Aztecs in Mexico and even the sunflower features clearly in the shield designs of several prominent Mexican deities, including Huitzilopochtli, Tlaloc and Opochtli (god of hunting and fishing).

Another thing that seem irrelevant but that are also linked to mythology is the love that Luffy has for beetles.

It is known that collecting beetles is one of the main hobbies that children in Japan have, which highlights Luffy's childlike nature but his connection with beetles is also related to the sun as in ancient cultures these animals were considered sacred animals and in Ancient Egypt they were associated with the sun and principally with Khepri, one of the Egyptian sun gods who was the morning sun god who had the head of a scabbard beetle and morning sun is also known as a dawn

and Luffy loves beetles and in the manga its said that Luffy will bring the world to a new dawn.

Also, Gum-Gum Bajrang Gun, Luffy final attack on Kaido, is named after a Monkey deity from hinduism mythology, Bajrang Bali or Hanuman. Who, when he was a child, tried to eat the sun, mistaken it as fruit, making reference to Luffy, a character associated with monkeys and inspired by Sun Wukong, a character who was powerfully inspired by Hanuman and just as Hanuman tries eat the sun believing that it was a fruit, Lufy eats the Hito Hito no mi, model: Nika believing that it was a normal fruit and later believing that it was a paramecia type.

The connection that Luffy has with the sun is present even in alchemy, to understand this first let me talk about alchemy:

In alchemy there are two important figures that are known as Solar King and Moon Queen, which are two substances that, when united through the alchemical wedding, give rise to the philosophical child or the philosopher's stone, this is important because the final objective of alchemy is to create the philosopher's stone that transforms lead into gold and also creates an elixir of eternal life.

Therefore, they are often referred to as the "red man" and the "white woman", the "red stone" and the "white stone" as well. Essentially, the two principles are as follows:

Red: sun, fire and air, sulfur, active, golden, hot and dry, heart or soul, masculine.

White: moon, water and earth, mercury, passive, silver, cool and humid, mind or spirit, feminine.

Having explained this as Luffy has the characteristics of the Solar King.

To begin with, the Solar King and Luffy, in addition to being associated with the sun, are also related to royalty (Solar King is represented as a king and Luffy wants to be the Pirates King).

Sulfur has always been associated with yellow (one of the Solar King's colors)

and fire (confirmed by the triangle of the fire element present in its symbol),

and Luffy has strong associations with fire and yellow which are explained below.

Fire: Luffy has two brothers Ace and Sabo with whom he has a fairly close relationship. Ace was the previous user of the Mera Mera no mi and had fire powers and after his death Sabo eats the fruit and inherits Ace's powers.

Also in the Wano country arc, Luffy learns to use Ryou which makes his attacks appear to be on fire.

Air: believe it or not, Luffy is also related to air. Air is an element that is always associated with lightness and freedom. Luffy is from Foosha Village (basically mean Windmill Village), he's someone with a light and relaxed character and values freedom because his dream of being Pirate King is to be the freest man in the world, Luffy always frees individuals and islands from oppression and his fruit is a symbol of everyone's desire for freedom. Also his gear 4 and 5 forms have clouds and Luffy in his gear 5 form can fly.

Solar characters are active and Luffy is someone quite active, he seeks adventure and prefers action over words. Also the characters associated with the Solar King are related to the heart or soul, that is, they are governed by emotions and/or are empathetic, that is, they understand the emotions of others and Luffy is emotional, he only does things because he he wants to and incredibly Luffy is one of the characters with the highest emotional intelligence in One Piece (gets mad at Morgan for giving the marines a bad image because it hurts Coby's vision of them and his dream of being one, he puts his hat on Nami to comfort her and assure her that if he will help her, he protects Hiruluk's flag because he knows how important it's to Chopper, encourages Robin to express her true desire to live and orders Usopp AKA Sogeking to burn the World Government flag to show her that his support for her is honest, covers Katakuri's face with his hat black as a show of respect and because he knows how sensitive Katakuri is about his mouth, etc.).

The Solar King's colors are red and gold (or yellow) and Luffy is seen wearing these colors most of the time.

The Solar King represents the masculine so most of the characters associated with it are male and Luffy is male.

It would be quite interesting if Luffy began to share some characteristics with the figure of Moon Queen (Luffy also has associations with blue and white, he has associations with earth growing up in a place with abundant plants and with water wanting to be a pirate and navigate, his gear 5 transformation does it on a full moon) which, together with the characteristics of Solar King that he already has, could turn him into the philosophical child or simply he would help to symbolically form the philosophical child with another character, well, let's remember that the two main functions of the philosopher's stone are transforms lead into gold and also creates an elixir of eternal life and with Luffy these two functions can be related in this way: Luffy improves the lives of the people he meets and even frees individuals and even whole countries (creates an elixir of eternal life) and he inspires them to be the best versions of themselves (transforms lead into gold).

I don't know if it was intentional on Oda's part but finding these features was quite interesting for me.

Something that I would like to see in One Piece is that if Sabo manages to awaken his fruit he can use blue fire because it would be the perfect way to honor Ace by reaching new heights with his fruit. The blue fire is the product of complete combustion which could represent Sabo's perfected mastery with his powers, blue fire is much hotter than normal fire which would make Sabo more powerful plus the only users of blue fire are almost always villains or antagonists and it would be quite refreshing to see a protagonist or a good character using blue fire and Sabo deserves it.

I want to share a strange but interesting headcanon that I've been thinking about and that is that if Luz Noceda had met the League of Villains (not knowing they were villains to begin with or just knowing them before they were villains) she probably would have become friends with them.

Let me explain, Luz is someone who canonically likes magic, fantasy, anime, videogames, taxidermy and death in general and her greatest desire was to be understood by others and the League strangely share aspects with Luz as well as deeply share the same desire as her (be understood by others):

Shigaraki: Luz and Shigaraki want to be like the people they admire the most (Luz wants to be a witch like Azura and Tomura wanted to be a hero like All Might) but they felt that their families and general environment rejected their wish. In addition, they hate themselves for situations beyond their control and the main villain of their series has made them believe that they are guilty of said situations. Also, Shigaraki and Luz love video games and I imagine them together with Spinner sharing their interests.

Spinner: Luz and Spinner despise themselves due to the ridicule they suffer from others and seek to be special like their favorite characters to feel better about themselves and ended up helping the main villain of their respective series without realizing it. I think Luz would love Spinner's look and that, plus the love of video games and anime that she shares with Shigaraki, would mean a lot to him (plus I can imagine Spinner, luz and Shigaraki sharing manga, books, video games as well as Luz and Spinner cosplaying Azura and Stain while flattering each other would be quite a fun scenario).

Dabi: Luz and Touya were desperate to please a parental figure in their lives so they wouldn't stop loving them and they overexerted themselves, hurting themselves in the process, but said parental figures failed (only Camila, unlike Endeavor, admits that failed Luz and seeks to support her in the best way she can).

Toga: Luz and Himiko share a taste for things that are unpleasant to others (Luz likes taxidermy and death and Himiko likes blood because her quirk is based on blood so blood is natural to her, even both found death animals as children and proudly showed it to others) and want to connect with others but both sabotage themselves because they're afraid of rejection. I think if they had met in middle school before Toga's incident with Saito, they would have become friends. Also, both characters are related to shapeshifting (Toga can shapeshift with her quirk and Luz has String Bean which is a shapeshifting palisman).

Twice: Luz and Twice just wanted to have people to trust but they always trusted the wrong person (it happened to Luz once with Belos and it happened to Twice, pun not intended, twice with Overhaul and Hawks) and blame themselves on themselves for it and were afraid that their friends would abandon them, blame them or get hurt for it.

Mr. Compress: Let's face it, Mr. Compress is the closest thing the League has to a wizard and even his quirk works like magic tricks and he probably appreciates Luz's wit and creativity and Luz loves magic so she would like him. Mr. Compress acts as an overseer for the League, working almost like a father figure who doesn't discriminate against them and genuinely loves them and Luz would highly value this type of attention from an adult because she feels that it is the first time that a human adult has appreciated her that is not her mother. Also, Mr. Compress is the great-great-grandson of the thief Oji Harima and shares his ancestor's desire to expose the injustice within hero society and reform the world into something better, something similar to what Luz wanted to do regarding Belos and the Boiling Islands in general.

Kurogiri: Just like Mr. Compress, Kurogiri functions as a caretaker for the League not only because of his programming as a nomu but because he is a caretaker by nature (Shirakumo was always characterized as a caretaker) and again, Luz would highly appreciate this kind of attention from an adult. Also, the magic of String Bean, Luz's palisman, has a similar color to Kurogiri's portals.

I love Willow's character development. She tries so hard to keep it together, because she's gained the reputation as the strong one of the group after all her training and support from her friends from her in the previous seasons. But the more she bottles up her emotions, the more she loses control of her powers and starts to doubt herself. Only by admitting her fears of her and letting her emotions out of her, does she regain control, and is able to pull through, and be a strong member of the team again.

I love the lesson this teaches, it's okay not to be strong all the time, it's okay to let people know if it's too much, and it's okay to show your emotions. There will always be someone to give you the support you need.

I like the fact that Armstrong uses the classic trope of defeat means friendship to recruit all the wind of destruction and tried to do the same with Raiden as if he were the protagonist of a shonen that after defeating his rivals they become his friends.

Just imagining Armstrong beating up Monsoon and Sundowner only to offer them a handshake after beating them and they have accepted is hilarious.

Mistral’s entire segment is already hilarious and insane on account of it being Mistral (and Metal Gear Rising in general), but it really reaches a new level when you find out this mysterious benefactor and his ideals that she’s referring to is fucking Armstrong. The scene is completely recontextualized knowing she’s borderline swooning over “Don’t fuck with this senator” and I’m just trying to imagine how that even happened. 

Did he go on that big hammy motive rant as he beat her up, and then Mistral was like omg I’m in love with you…r ideals!!! Did he offer a handshake when it was all said and done and she accepted? Come to think of it Armstrong also offered a handshake to Sam after defeating him, and got his employment as a wind of destruction. Is this how Armstrong recruited all of the others, just beating the friendship into them like the Shonen trope? And since it worked multiple times before, it’s why he’s so totally blindsided when Raiden doesn’t play along (because this dude really is convinced he’s the hero who befriends his enemies to save the day, as a foil to Raiden)?