I am the Bandit King of the East Sea.

This is a rather tedious detail. To be honest, if you don't get bogged down in the details and just write whatever comes to mind, probably no one will notice it.

The timeline information for One Piece is quite confusing, and there are some contradictions.

Online sources generally offer two theories: one is that the Great Pirate Era began in 1500, and the other is that it began in 1498.

While researching online, I discovered that more than one One Piece fanfiction creator had encountered the same problem as me...

This may seem like a minor change in numbers, but it's actually a significant obstacle for fanfiction writers who want to write about the old era.

For example, source A says the Battle of God Valley took place 38 years ago, source B says Roger arrived at Watery Star Island 37 years ago, and source C says Roger arrived at Watery Star Island 39 years ago.

If I hadn't figured out the timeline, I might have written that Roger first fought the Battle of God Valley, and then arrived at Water Star Island the following year to prepare for the Second Great Voyage.

Without a clear timeline, it will affect my arrangement of the order of the two storylines, and thus affect the pacing of the plot in this volume.

It took quite a bit of effort to carve out a clear timeline from the messy mess.

..........

2. It is fictional.

The original work did not focus much on the past.

Therefore, this volume will definitely need to have a lot of original plot locations and characters.

For example, the red earth continent.

Because it's difficult to lay the groundwork for past chapters, much of this original content was written with almost no foreshadowing.

This part is probably not very easy to read.

Because of the plot holes left in the previous text, these storylines cannot be skipped and must be written.

There is still no good solution to this problem. Writing large sections of original character stories in fan fiction is not really appropriate, and I am not good at it either.

Therefore, the later solution was simply abbreviated and shortened.

3. Ending Plot: The handling of Roger's death

As mentioned above, I am an author with a relatively detailed outline.

Most of the main plot of this book is developed according to an outline set a month or several months in advance.

However, the key plot point at the end of the past chapters—Roger's death—is not the case.

When writing this piece, the original outline was to follow history and let Roger die a natural death. Later, another branch was added: a faked death.

I hesitated for a long time between these two completely different plot branches, and it wasn't until the middle of this volume that I decided which ending to choose.

As mentioned earlier, it took quite a bit of time to sort out the chaotic timeline of the original work in order to write the past chapters.

This expenditure was not in vain.

Before researching, I thought Roger and Rouge's relationship was similar to Usopp and Kaya's—they knew each other long before, reunited after the pirate crew disbanded, and then had a child and surrendered themselves in one fell swoop.

But that's not how it's written in the documents.

Roger didn't meet Rouge until he was 52, then quickly found love, married, had children, and then surrendered himself to the police...

When I found this information, my first thought was Morgan's fruit flies, which are mentioned in biology textbooks.

Let's imagine,

After Roger became the Pirate King and disbanded his pirate crew, he knew his lifespan was short.

While taking the last of the life-saving medicine from the ship's doctor, Crocus, he mustered his strength and quickly had sex with a woman, fathering a child...

As expected of the Pirate King, even at 52 years old and suffering from a terminal illness, he remains as fierce as a wolf...

When I found this information, my understanding of Roger changed.

He is no longer just a shining hero and villain in epic tales, but closer to a normal person with flesh and blood.

So I abandoned the ending of the first version and chose the current approach.

This is my understanding of Roger.

Whether Oda thinks that way or not is none of my business.

If you want to see the shock of a martyred hero's death, or if you want the more powerful message that One Piece dies, or if you want a man's romance, turn to the original manga, One Piece.

To be honest, I'm just a fanfiction writer with limited skills and abilities; I can't write something like that.

Honestly, the more I study One Piece, the more I realize how amazing Oda is...

In addition, I believe that fan works should focus on two key aspects: making up for the shortcomings of the original work and exploring storylines that were not chosen in the original. This is another reason why I ultimately changed my mind.

4. This volume is too long.

This is also a problem that I realized would arise before I even started writing this piece.

The past chapter was indeed something I decided to write early in the book's development; it wasn't a spur-of-the-moment decision but rather something I had been planning for a long time.

Therefore, most of the parts you see, such as "it's back to normal" or "it's back to normal again," are based on the outline.

This volume is something I've wanted to write for a long time.

When Sig was lying, I had already conceived of the impact the lie would have on the subsequent plot, including how to cover up the lie in the past chapters.

This book doesn't have many brilliant ideas for filling in plot holes; most of the plot points are foreshadowing that was planned in advance. It took a lot of time and effort to create.

This is my biggest motivation for writing this novel, which is now nearly 200 million words long—to fill in the plot holes according to the outline and write what I wanted to write more than a million words ago.

So far, my biggest expectation for this book is to complete the past chapter that I have been planning for a long time, forming a self-contained and interconnected plot structure.

This is the most difficult volume for me.

Because of this, I have a lot to write, and the final section on the past is a bit long. Readers who are following the story and want to read the main story may be more eager to read the present chapter.

This is why this volume is so long.

My solution is to try to write faster, but the part about covering up the lie requires far more effort and is much more difficult than the preceding content, so I really can't write it quickly. Please forgive me.

The period before and after the past chapters was actually the period when this book was updated the fastest so far, until the day I took leave.

Finally, because there were too many voices urging us to return to the "present," the later plot was sped up, some content was cut, and a little loose end was left. In the later part of this volume, we rushed back to the present, which was a bit rushed.

I was prepared for the subscriptions to drop or even be halved, but I still planned to finish writing the content as scheduled. I didn't expect the subscriptions to be so stable.

Whether looking at the most direct data on subscriptions, feedback from posts, or the author's personal impressions, this volume is very well completed.

......................

summary

Looking at this volume from the back, it also has some of the aforementioned problems, such as its length.

Overall, however, it still achieved the level of completion I expected.

The past chapters form a symmetrical closed loop on their own, and at the same time, they correspond to the foreshadowing in the previous chapters, forming a larger closed loop.

My biggest expectation for this book has been fulfilled.

So, as I write this, I suddenly have the illusion that this is the end, that it's all complete.

This book is doing quite well. Although it's not as popular as Hedgehog Cat's top-tier bestsellers, the steady subscriptions have surprised me a bit... The outline must have played a part in this.

Therefore, the writing will continue along the original outline.

.....

I know I should spend time working on outlines and foreshadowing...

In reality, it's a thankless task; most readers don't have that much patience to read foreshadowing spanning millions of words.

I'd be better off putting all that time and energy into the main text, writing one more chapter a day, and earning more royalties.

However, when writing a book, there is always a bit of sentiment involved.

This place embodies the spirit of One Piece, and also reflects my own personal aspirations.

All this effort was simply to write a story that met expectations and was engaging and entertaining.

For readers who didn't have the patience to finish reading the previous chapters or skipped some chapters, if you still like this book, please subscribe to the whole thing for a complete reading experience.

It's not that I care about the money for skipping the subscription, but it's really annoying that the content I put so much effort and time into writing and preparing was skipped.

.............

Finally, let me explain the reason for taking leave.

The key plot point at the end of this volume, Roger's death, has a significant impact. Because I scrapped the original outline, the outline for the next volume also had to be redone.

This might lead to the deletion of an entire volume... or it might not.

In short, it will take some time to sort these things out and determine the plot of the next volume.

I'm taking a day off. See you tomorrow.

Anniversary Bounty

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Chapter 838, Tenth Character Card: Mountain Bandit King Sig

When Sieg came to his senses, he was not in the expected "now," but in a familiar scene.

Looking around, one sees dazzling starlight in all directions.

Directly in front of Sieg, a deep time tunnel was slowly rotating.

"Shall we go back here first?"

The last time Sieg remembered seeing such a scene was after he was killed by Stussy in the Holy Land.

At that time, Sieg saw many time tunnels in this starry space.

Now, only this last one remains.

Sieg stepped forward.

Through the deep cave entrance, Sieg indeed saw himself surrounded by fifty-six emperors, holding a wine cup.

Step into the tunnel, and you'll be there now.