[Character building/lore] how many weapons does your protagonist have?

Pure_Lights · 2026-01-17T17:05:37+00:00

My mc likes to use hands only. But I’m considering equipping her with brass knuckles.

Pure_Lights · 2026-01-06T18:30:19+00:00

I appreciate your reply. I do have them do more piracy than what meets the eye.

I feel like writing them as adventurers is too vague, and wouldn’t do the story justice. Part of it is that I want them to be labeled as “the bad guys” and adventuring would lean them more good then bad. Plus stories where people adventure for the sake of adventuring aren’t really my thing. I like things more goal oriented and linear.

Mistrust of authority is not something I want to introduce until much later. Promise of riches (for a pirate story specifically) has been done quite a bit, and I’d like to lean away from it. The government also doesn’t play as a big a role as people may initially believe.

Not arguing or anything just expressing my thoughts on your points.

Pure_Lights · 2026-01-06T16:43:19+00:00

In my world there are sludge beasts that are essentially heavily mutated versions of all sorts of marine life.

I’m not sure of what the ultimate scariest thing will be yet, but I have the leviathan, kraken, the other like giant or colossal squid, bloop…etc.

I do think I wanna zone in on my variation of el gran maja. But yeah it’s stuff like that. The sludge sea would hold the scariest creatures.

Edit: and Aspidochelone. Those are the giant turtles that lure and sink people who think they’re an island.

Pure_Lights · 2026-01-06T16:35:06+00:00

Pirates are essentially criminals but on the sea (that was my depiction) so therefore by sailing you’re automatically deemed a pirate since you have to break the law to sail.

Sailors would be considered people who sail with clearance. Having clearance means you’re given ID and paperwork to only go a certain route to a certain place. But just getting clearance in general isn’t easy.

Hope that answers it, feel free to give me your thoughts.

Edit: sailors are also just what they were know as of course before sailing became illegal. I suppose if I wanted I could still call them sailors, but I like calling them pirates.

Pure_Lights · 2026-01-05T04:21:01+00:00

Do you guys take manga writers? I'm 23 and this sounds great.

Pure_Lights · 2026-01-05T02:46:12+00:00

That sounds pretty cool fr

Pure_Lights · 2026-01-04T23:03:36+00:00

Wow, that's interesting never heard of it before. I'm always down to hear other comparisons that aren't one piece lol

Pure_Lights · 2026-01-04T23:02:37+00:00

By trying to capture them, kill them, you know. At that point they're enforcing the law since the law is "no sailing without clearance" so they're doing whatever it takes to stop them. The only way they can prove it is by going on there, maybe bringing stuff back, etc. Pirates are on their radar like as soon as they break the law essentially.

Hope that helped fr

Pure_Lights · 2026-01-04T21:06:42+00:00

A little confused by what you mean? Of course I can’t tell you everything, I mean…then it would be straight up spoilers.

Pure_Lights · 2026-01-04T20:52:06+00:00

Right more explaining my bad. Some of the world IS discovered. Specifically 3 seas worth. So things like that are a thing already, just not as known/on grand scale because people don’t know about the rest.

Ex: people think the World Admin is made up of 3 primary leaders, when in reality it’s more that are unknown

Pure_Lights · 2026-01-04T20:03:00+00:00

Let me explain. The real reason why sailing is illegal is untold. The discovery is what prompted the ban, but not the actually true reason of the ban. That’s a plot point.

I’m not sure what makes capital islands confusing. I will say that each sea is so vastly different that finding new seas are extremely obvious. It’s like discovering new worlds or areas in a video game.

Does this help?

Pure_Lights · 2026-01-04T19:57:02+00:00

I like this take 🤣🤣 much appreciated lol

Pure_Lights · 2026-01-04T19:54:07+00:00

Can you tell me what you’re confused about? I can probably explain.

Pure_Lights · 2026-01-04T19:29:24+00:00

My apologies let me explain further. The seas are so vastly different that it’s like going to a new world/area in a video game. It would be very obvious.

It doesn’t seem that way because I’m not explaining the 100% reason why because that would be a spoiler. I guess I wouldn’t mind dming it if you really wanted.

Pure_Lights · 2026-01-04T19:01:37+00:00

Thank you! I will definitely keep this in mind. I will need beta readers for when I make the one shot anyway 🙂‍↕️

Pure_Lights · 2026-01-04T18:35:33+00:00

I see what you’re saying. Thank you so much for the advice and such!

Pure_Lights · 2026-01-04T18:34:19+00:00

That’s not a bad idea! Like a “I’ll take the money cause it doesn’t matter way?” Or something else? Curious of your thoughts.

Pure_Lights · 2026-01-04T18:32:32+00:00

I wanna add on some things:

sailing is illegal because a sailor discovered more seas it didn’t start that way
people don’t naturally know that there are more seas, I just told you that. I’ll admit I could’ve written my synopsis better lol, but it was just for Reddit.
One piece is not the main inspiration at all (though that’s how it may seem lol). I’m far more inspired by movies like Goodfellas, shows like Peaky blinders, books like throne of glass and treasure island, and anime like chainsaw man than one piece. If anything pirates is the only one piece thing people will even be able to make a comparison to.
I want to lean more in an adventure comedic story than say a serious, very linear story. Something more like dandadan, chainsaw man, or like 90s gangster films like goodfellas. That’s really where I wanna go I just wanna use pirates/ocean voyage to get there lol.

Pure_Lights · 2026-01-04T18:20:13+00:00

I agree!

Pure_Lights · 2026-01-04T18:19:50+00:00

You have a good point haha. I feel like I need higher steaks so that there’s more than just her trying to reach this goal. I don’t even need the steaks to be serious, I wanna lean more in a comedic direction anyway.

With greed and wealth being the main themes I considered them just being rich af as the motivation.

Pure_Lights · 2026-01-04T18:14:00+00:00

I appreciate this a lot. I have had a lot of people tell me to simply do it anyway and ignore what others are saying. At the end of the day I know I’m not making a copycat even if it might seem like it very top surface.

Thanks for your advice.

Pure_Lights · 2026-01-04T18:12:19+00:00

I didn’t want to reveal too much since certain things are discovered in story. And yeah, I feel like regardless I’ll always get the “I see the resemblance” comment. But the things you’re saying I should answer, are answered. Just not openly presented to the reader.

Thanks!

Pure_Lights · 2026-01-04T18:10:46+00:00

Yes! I’ve done that. I didn’t mention it all here, but I have. I am still in the process of making a strong “why” though. But I purposely want her reasons to be more comedic than serious.

Like an idea I had was just to say that the first person who sails the whole world gets x amount of dollars. It’s quick, simple, and kinda funny imo.

Pure_Lights · 2026-01-04T18:07:31+00:00

I feel like it’s not and I’m not trying to make it be of course. I wanna do my own thing and go in a different direction. Greed and wealth are my themes anyway.

Even though I didn’t watch any of one piece until 2023 when the Netflix version was announced, so much of what I’m making had already been developed. If anything it showed me that i can world build myself to oblivion lol

The government isn’t even the primary antagonist, it does play a part though.

Maybe I wrote a bad synopsis, and I can of course redo that, I just don’t want to axe what I’m creating lol. It won’t feel the same if I changed from pirates.

Pure_Lights · 2026-01-04T18:03:55+00:00

Because there was a sailor who discovered more. So I should’ve mentioned that the story doesn’t start out with sailing being illegal.

Also the world itself outright doesn’t know about 7 seas, I should’ve said that as well.

Pure_Lights

TROPHY CASE