why those pants, shanks?

I give you: The Navigator’s Map of Shanties for the Weary Voyager!

So my husband got the idea to make a timeline map of my Shanks x Makino series ("Shanties" for short), so that readers could better see how the different fics are connected, and while I should have been prepared, knowing full well how brilliant he is, I was not prepared for the end result. I mean look at it!!!

Some descriptions of key fics and planned updates below! The fics are listed in the recommended reading order on AO3, but feel free to chart your own course! Beware rogue whirlpools and dangerous straits, and remember that however dark and treacherous the sea, at the end of the voyage is always a safe harbour ♥

Hoist the colours! 🏴‍☠️

I'm so happy you're enjoying them!! I also showed this to the mapmaker himself, and he's so excited that people are using the map<3

And it's hitting me just how long I've been doing this (eight years since I reworked Siren's Call and posted Sea Songs, which was the start of Shanties), but I've just really loved writing these stories, and out of everything I've ever written, Shanties has been the project I've poured most of my heart into. And while my audience is small, it's the kindest and most supportive I've ever encountered in all my years of writing fic. Case in point: messages like this, where all the work I've put into this series feels so worth it, because eight years and 2.5 million words later there's someone making their way through all of it and they still don't want it to end? Incredible<3

And there might yet be more unexplored islands added to the map! There's also the still-uncharted "?" ;)

(The wanted poster hangs, framed, next to Luffy's behind the counter of Shanks and Makino's bar. An updated version can be procured from the proprietors upon request.)

"Did he issue it on himself?" Shanks asked. "I still have so many questions. Also, since there's no mention of a reward, is he supposed to be the reward? That's...annoyingly clever."

"Are you jealous you didn't think to do this back when you were young and untethered?" Makino asked, bumping her hip against his where she'd joined him behind the counter, observing their wall of wanted posters. Pride of place was awarded to the young Pirate King's, surrounded by a cheerful assortment, including Yasopp's first, long out of print but still the source of several outlandish stories.

"First of all, 'back when you were young'? I'm unarmed, and that's a killing blow." The patient fold of her lips delicately parried the pun, although his beaming expression made it hard, as Shanks continued, "But no, I've had enough bounties issued on me in my lifetime; this would have been over the top, even for me. Why?" That grin was a fitting substitute for the blade he'd left in their quarters. "Want to cash it in? I might be retired, but this ass is still working."

This time, the fold of her lips didn't succeed in holding back her snorting laugh, before the rest rolled out of her, to the delight of her adversary and the bemused smiles of their patrons, their heads turning towards the bar at the sound.

They stood together for a gentle beat as it died down, her head leaning on his arm where he leaned against the counter, observing their wall of wanted posters.

Then Shanks asked her, with a nod to the one of their first mate (age seventeen, hair still black, shame not included) where it hung next to the Pirate King's,

"So does keeping it up here make us pimps?"

“Makino?” Buggy asked, but then in terms of names, it was as un-flashy as the rest of the village. “Who’s that, your mayor?”

That had Bucket Hat huffing, before he straightened his narrow shoulders. “I am the mayor,” he said, although it wasn’t long before he conceded, “But they’re right; she’ll know what to do. She owns the bar over yonder.” He gestured with his walking stick to a house down the street, before walking off, grumbling under his breath about today’s youth. Buggy didn’t correct him to say he was almost forty; compared to that knot of limbs, he probably was a youth.

The broad who owned the tavern was probably similarly ancient, but then places like this were usually made up of retirees and spinsters; everyone else either enlisted or set out to sea under a different flag, or just to try their luck in a city somewhere. This barmaid was probably twice his age, and with his luck, twice as mean. Why else would the villagers be so eager to send him her way, other than to see him chased out of her bar with a broom?

The bar in question was the only one in the village, but then that wasn’t a surprise. Party’s Bar, the sign read, which he might have paused on, because this town didn’t look like it would know a party if one showed up, but Buggy barely glanced at it as he shoved through the bat-wing doors―

―only to come to a halt, the doors swinging wildly behind him, and his wide eyes staring at the cheerful interior of a common room that looked so unlike any bar he’d ever set foot in, he almost went back to double-check the sign out front.

The rest of his crew filed in behind him; unlike Buggy, still staring at the neat interior, they reacted with delight and approval.

Movement behind the bar dragged his eyes to the woman there, only to freeze.

Wide, doe-brown eyes considered him, and the crew crowding her doorway. She looked surprised rather than afraid, as she said, carefully, “Hello.”

Buggy barely heard the greeting, still staring at her face. He’d expected an old bat, spine like a fishing hook and with barnacles growing in the grooves of her face; the kind who breathed salt and rum and whose apron had stains older than the bar.

The one watching him from behind the counter was barely thirty, and more than that, she was―

She was―

“Captain,” someone behind him whispered. “You’re blocking the doorway.”

“Hey!” Buggy snapped, his hands planted on the balcony railing. “The hell do you think you’re doing, calling the shots? You’re not the leader!”

Mihawk ignored him, his gaze still holding hers. The surrounding bounty hunters looked between them, as though unsure of whose orders to follow.

“Well,” the leader of the group who’d brought them said; unlike the rest of his men, Makino hadn't had the chance to learn his name, but maybe it was just as well. “This exchange went a little differently than I’d anticipated.” Then to Mihawk, “But even if she’s not navy, we rescued her from them, and we brought her to you, safe and sound, so it’s only right that we’re compensated.”

She heard Buggy splutter a protest, and if she hadn't been so overwhelmed, might have offered some choice words of her own about what she thought of his liberal use of the words "rescued" and "safe and sound", but before either of them could get a word in, “Very well,” Hawk-Eyes said, as Makino blinked. “Name your price."

“What the hell?!” Buggy shrieked. “You can’t just give our money away!”

The bounty hunter considered him, his look measuring, although the gleam in his eyes was familiar; the same he'd had when he'd presented her with the newspaper announcing her arrest, and he'd realised just who he had on his ship. It was the look of an opportunist.

“Three crowns,” he said then, as Buggy choked. And before Makino could ask what that meant, “Three billion berri.”

Her eyes widened.

A stunned beat passed. Within the crowded tent, you could have heard a pin drop.

Then Buggy exploded.

“Are you insane?!” he shrieked from the balcony, his voice carrying through the whole tent, and making everyone wince. “That’s what we’d pay for an Admiral!”

Makino might have seconded the first part, if the number hadn’t made her brain short-circuit.

His smile lifted from the brown eyes watching him to their mirrors across the counter, and, “If you want to hear everything, I’m going to be here a while,” Marco said.

Her grin saw no problem with that. “Then I should get you a drink,” Makino said.

He might have accepted, but watching the bandits taking their seats around the room, all but Dadan, who claimed the seat next to his, there was something else he'd rather have, and, “I’d actually be more interested in your stories,” Marco said. “You must have your share from when he was a kid.”

Their grins had already answered, before a voice called across the room, “Oh we’ve got stories!”

“That little punk got into more trouble before noon than most of us managed in a week!”

“And then had the audacity to tell us he was better at our profession than we were!”

Laughter filled the bar, the sheer volume of it so loud it stole his breath. And it hit him then, just how long it had been since he’d heard this kind of laughter.

And in the sound, he found them, all his ghosts, seated around the tables between the bandits, their eager grins awaiting their stories. And the greatest among them, sitting at the back of the room, no medical equipment holding him down and his presence as commanding as ever, presiding over the crowd, although even their captain would have known to defer to the proprietor’s authority here, but then it wasn’t just a barmaid’s domain they’d entered, but an Empress’.

“I think we should be able to work out an arrangement,” Makino said, with a smile that said his own assessment hadn’t gone unnoticed. “I accept more than one type of currency here.” Placing her hands on the counter, “So what can I get you?” she asked. “The time I taught him to mend his own clothes and he accidentally sewed his shirt to his shorts, or the time he wanted to learn how to cook and nearly set my kitchen on fire?”

Still have a bunch of these in my inbox, and on the subject of Makino befriending powerful people by just being herself, here's a snippet from the next chapter of Salt Vows, which is next on my list after Put It on My Tab:

She’d lost track of how many days had passed since her arrest, the hours bleeding together and the world beyond the brig unchanged, tossing restlessly against the ship, in tandem with the contents of her stomach.

At least she wasn’t alone this time, although in terms of companionship, a taciturn Vice-Admiral wouldn't have been her first choice.

“And then they all join forces to crash the king's execution?”

Eyes closed in a vain attempt at not seeing how much the brig was tilting, “There’s a bit more build-up before that, but yes,” Makino said, her voice echoing hollowly inside the bucket in her lap.

“It's too easy,” Smoker said, leaning back against the bulkhead where he sat on his cot, his seastone cuffs in his lap. Unlike her, he didn't seem remotely bothered by the rough conditions. “How did they even get into the city?”

“Would suspending your disbelief enough to accept that they did be too much to ask?”

"I just don't buy how they all got past the guards."

"Neither did Ben, but I don't see either of you writing a bestseller," Makino muttered, and felt the pang of longing, but then in debating the plotholes of her favourite books, a fiercer adversary was hard to imagine, even if her current companion was quickly proving himself a worthy opponent.

Primly mutinous, she kept herself from reminding him that he was the one who'd asked, but figured the boredom had to be getting to him. At least talking kept her mind off her seasickness.

Then Smoker said, “At least it's not as bad as that amnesia story.”

Opening her eyes slowly, Makino looked at him through the bars, before saying calmly, "I will toss my puke bucket at you."

The corner of his mouth jutted. “If you could lift it in your state I’d consider that a legitimate threat.”

She might have proved him wrong, but whatever rebuttal she’d had ready, verbal or otherwise, was cut short as the ship rocked, and she bent over the bucket and retched.

Hearing that it's one of your favourites made me so happy, I went and finished the draft for the next chapter, so it's actually next on my schedule! Hoping to update it this week if energy allows, but in the meantime, have a little snippet while I edit!

From chapter 2 of Put It on My Tab, aka the fic where a lot of people show up in Makino's bar. First up:

The bar was like he’d described it.

It’s not your usual watering hole, he’d said, his gaze drawn inwards, as though picturing it. They'd been drinking in the galley on Moby Dick, all of them gathered together; the noise level had almost drowned out his voice as he'd continued, It’s really tidy, and she keeps flowers in her windows. I used to think bars were supposed to be seedy, or at the very least a little dingy. All the ones I’d seen in Goa were, so I figured it was part of the gig, but hers was different.

He’d grinned; the one he reserved for the good things from his childhood, like his brothers, and the bandits who’d raised him, as Ace had told them, simply, She’s different.

I take it you’ve never dined and dashed from your tab there, Marco remembered saying.

He’d laughed at that. He could still recall the sound, and the way he’d throw his head back. Oyaji had once remarked that he’d never looked more like his father than when he laughed, but Marco had never told Ace that.

I’d like to meet the person who could, Ace had said.

Their whole crew had been listening now, Oyaji included, a focus that betrayed a curious amount of intrigue, given the topic of conversation, but it was Izo who'd asked, She's that scary?

Ace's grin had softened, something almost bashful in it, as though he was suddenly a much younger boy, even if Marco had often teased him that he was young. And he’d given them a clear picture of the island where he'd grown up, and its inhabitants, Dadan and her family, and the villagers, but here he’d shaken his head, as though this couldn’t be described. Instead, all he’d said was,

If you ever meet her, you’ll see what I mean.

THIS IS INDEED WILD and I am so!!! As someone whose whole shtick is characters finding and falling in love with each other across different timelines and universes, “i fell in love with your writing two separate times over more than ten years” might just be the greatest thing I've ever been told. Just absolutely floored by this<3

“Speaking of the virginity parade, we still don’t know how Ben lost his!”

The call reached them from across the bar, dragging every pair of eyes within to their first mate.

“Better that you don’t know,” Ben said simply, and without looking up from his crossword.

Unsurprisingly, this did not dissuade them, as the grin jutting around his toothpick was well aware.

“You do realise that only makes us want to know more?”

"Why won't you tell us?!"

"Did you sign a non-disclosure agreement?"

"Does that mean it's someone in the navy?"

Ben remained unfazed by the barrage of questions, his attention on his crossword, and impatient, “Boss, can’t you pull the captain card?” a voice called, to loud agreement. “We’re dying here!”

“Someone has to win that betting pool; it’s ten years old!”

"I still say it was Tsuru!”

This was greeted with ooooohs, and several voices raised in agreement. “Yeah! She's way too familiar with you whenever we cross paths with her!"

More of them joined in, each suggestion more outrageous than the last. Someone claimed they’d heard there’d been a bounty out on it; another that he'd lost it to a Wano princess. Several high-ranked officers of the navy were mentioned, and one of the wilder suggestions was that he’d lost his virginity to the Kuja Pirates (plural), and not only that, but that it was the direct cause of their former Empress’ exile.

"Wait, which one?” someone asked, over the din of them all talking over each other. “The old girl or Shakuyaku?"

"If it was Shakky, I don't think Rayleigh would let us drink at the bar."

This was met with murmurs of agreement, before someone blurted in disbelief, “Do you all seriously think his first time was so significant it made the Empress of Amazon Lily abdicate?!”

"No one has that much game!!"

“I think this whole Casanova rep is just a front, and he's still a virgin!"

Their voices had risen to a fever pitch. For his part, Ben hadn’t taken his eyes off his crossword, and neither denied nor confirmed any of it, only grinned around his toothpick.

"Come on, Boss, make him tell us!"

They all turned to Shanks, who told Makino, "For the record, I also think it was Tsuru.” Then to the rest of the bar, watching him expectantly, “But if it was that easy to get him to spill, I’d have done it already. I’ve been trying to get him to open up for twenty years, and he still refuses. The captain card does not work.”

“Not for you,” Ben said.

The whole bar went quiet.

Then every single pirate within, their captain included, turned as one to Makino, who hadn’t lifted her eyes from the glass she was polishing.