@ArseneWenger:

About the Mane Mane no Mi, it was established when Bon Clay first appeared that he needed to touch the person's face with the right hand to copy him.

It means, Higurashi had to touch Oden's face (THAT SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE FOR SOMEONE UNKNOWN TO HIM), Sukiyaki's face, Momo's face (which, also seems unlikely).

Just can't buy it.

Assuming that Higurashi had access to the faces of any younger, attractive ladies, it becomes VERY plausible that she could have touched Oden's face at some point. If she touches Oden, she can touch Momo.

As long as she has access to someone who CAN be in a room with the desired target, gaining the right face isn't really that hard.

EDIT: basically the same thing was posted before I could reply

I'm for Carrot.

I don't think there's any point in looking at a work of fiction as a series of pegs to be knocked down or empty checkboxes to be marked, I think if the needs of the writer align a certain way, whatever way, then everything else can bend to make that fit. So I won't comment on those details.

But I WILL say, with my limited knowledge as a writer… with the way Carrot's been handled in the story so far, I don't see any way for her NOT to be on the crew eventually. If she leaves at the end of this arc, honestly I'll be completely baffled as to why she was ever there to begin with.

Once again, I don't want to comment on patterns or such, except for one thing. Her inclusion doesn't fit the pattern of other crewmates, but there's never been a pattern to begin with and I can't imagine Oda putting such a restriction on himself. But there IS a pattern to be noted, and it says a whole lot: so far, her role in the story has been wildly inconsistent with that of other characters who HAVEN'T joined the Straw Hats.

For the most part, Oda doesn't really let people be on the boat from one arc to the next without giving them a really good reason to be there. He wants the focus to be on the main cast, after all. The exception has always been for characters who enable the Straw Hats to go on the next adventure. Right from the moment she was named, Vivi was about getting to Alabasta. Law brought them to Dressrosa, Caesar was part of that arrangement, and the alliance is the throughline in the conflict against Kaido. Kinemon and Momonosuke kicked off Wano, etc. But Carrot? Carrot didn't get on the boat until they were already going to Whole Cake. Her being there had no impact on having them go to Wano. All that was already happening.

So what has Carrot DONE so far? If we quantify this in terms of plot points, her part in Whole Cake was twofold. She was motivated by Pedro's death, and introduced us to Sulong. However. The main takeaway from Pedro's death, though, was that it motivated Carrot, working as the turning point, if you will, in her character arc. And Sulong, meanwhile, will surely have greater plot significance later, but there were already Minks in that arc, and a whole lot of them in the arc before. There were other times to let us know about Sulong, but as it was applied in Whole Cake, the big impact of that scene was to hype up Carrot. In other words. Both of Carrot's plot points in that arc, were for the sake of developing Carrot. Oda's a busy man with a story to finish, he wouldn't go so far to develop a temporary teammate if the only development was going to circle around back to herself.

The real reason she was there, through Whole Cake and her small role in Wano, is to get us used to seeing her. The New World is super complicated, with a huge net of characters and plot points that overlap each other, so there's not really room to do a straight shot from Introduction to Join the Crew. So he's letting her endear herself to us, giving her small bits, and letting us see her as part of the group shots, so that we'll be already accustomed to having her be part of the team when it's time to leave Wano.

The only other characters I can possibly admit to being similar to Carrot in their role so far is Johnny and Yosaku, but... c'mon. They didn't have the emotional pull that Carrot did, they didn't bond to any of the main cast like Carrot did, and they were never framed in the team moments like Carrot consistently has been. Her big moment will come, either as part of a fight, as a dramatic farewell during the Big Party that Luffy mentioned, or as part of some unseen plot development. It couldn't be in the recent crop of chapters because, well, it's Jinbe's hour atm. But Oda was certain to show Carrot as part of that, and always framed as another part of the crew. Maybe I'm misreading this, but I don't see why Oda would go through that effort just to throw it in the trash when the arc ends.

Regarding whether or not Blackbeard can read poneglyphs, and the information recently learned about him, I've come to think that it's more and more likely that Teach actually isn't human. And with this most current flashback, I've also realized. Have we ever seen the guy without some kind of hat on?

Y'all. What if Blackbeard himself is a three-eyes? Did we ever see Pudding sleep?

I would read a Song-of-Ice-and-Fire-length novel series that was just about Smoker and Tashigi's adventures across the Grand Line.

And as long as we're doing heroines. Please Robin. Just anything Robin related. That's all I ask for.

Either way, so long as the Nami novel comes out with an English translation, that's gonna be an instant-buy from me.

Good possibility: Punk Hazard
Great possibility: Punk Hazard, simuldub, Romance Dawn
The impossible dream: MOVIE 6. MOVIE 6. MOVIE 6.

So I had this theory like two years ago, never got around to mentioning it, but thought it would be worth bringing up now. It has some shades of theories already brought up in this thread, but (from what I've seen, though I've only skimmed lightly) my version has a few differences that I think are worth mentioning as its own thing. But, basically…

The alliance between Big Mom and Kaido isn't the only alliance between Emperors right now. Shanks and Blackbeard are also allies, or at least working towards the same goal.

We know very little about either of them, but across the board, two things have remained consistent. The first is that they both are very occupied with fate, or seem to be convinced that events are happening on a preset path and any aberrations from that path are to be avoided. Blackbeard's comments on fate are well documented, but also note many of Shanks' more cryptic words, like how it was "too soon" for Ace and Blackbeard to fight, which are weirdly similar to some of Blackbeard's lines. The second similarity is how much they go out of their way to avoid actually fighting or meeting each other. Shanks cautions Whitebeard to avoid any confrontation with Blackbeard whatsoever, meanwhile his arrival at Marineford feels almost deliberately timed to give Blackbeard an easy opening to escape after all his objectives have already been met. With so much about the two unknown, apart from the fact that they share a history (we know that Blackbeard gave Shanks his scar but nothing else) it's entirely within the realm of possibility that they've been collaborating behind the scenes, orchestrating Blackbeard's rise to power, in order to fulfill a prophecy they both believe in.

I think that they both want to see a full return of the Ancient Kingdom and/or the Clan of D, perhaps following the same vision that Rocks had, and the key to doing that is on Laugh Tale. But, there's a price to pay for getting there, and that only a D is able to pay it. (remember that basically anyone in a position to go to Laugh Tale or who might know what the One Piece is, doesn't want it) Or, perhaps, the Prophecy dictates that all D's except one need to be killed off before one single carrier of the Will of D is left to inherit the world on his own. Blackbeard obviously sees himself as the one to do this, but can't achieve his dream without also suffering the price. The solution? Build up a sacrificial D, give him the hat of destiny and enough motivation to plunge ahead on his goal, do the minimum to nudge him along the right track, wait for him to open the path to Laugh Tale, not knowing the terrible consequence or the prophecy... and then swoop in and take the prize once the conditions are met and the price is already paid.

The thing is, while Blackbeard clearly sees the One Piece and the title of Pirate King/King of the World as his right by fate and wants it for his own gain, Shanks might genuinely think that the ultimate goal of bringing back the Ancient Kingdom is for the greater good, and would be alright with Luffy somehow subverting their design, so long as he still fulfills the conditions of the prophecy instead.

I'm late to the conversation on Imu, but I'd still like to add my agreement regarding what others have said, while also agreeing that, if she was indeed some final villain of incredible power that needs to be punched in order to set the world back to its Proper Order, it would be an extraordinarily bad move on Oda's part. But she seems like more of a symbol, both in-text and in a narrative sense. Imu represents the underlying fraud behind the World Government, the lie that all nations have an equal seat at the table, that Garp took a shot at in this chapter. She's that but literal, the proverbial "man behind the curtain" that's pulling the strings and guiding the world to keep the power structures from ever changing. I don't think Luffy necessarily needs to beat her in a fight, or even meet her personally, just her existence being exposed to the world would probably be enough to knock her (and the Gorosei who support her) toppling down from the pedestal. Throwing my own theory in, I think it'd be neat if the one to do that would be a Marine, either Coby or Smoker would be fitting for the job.

Then again, that's only from what we know about Imu right now, and Oda does love to throw surprises at us, so her real nature might be totally unexpected and off the rails. That, I think, might just be the best option.

Angel's fine. Her attitude is troublesome for sure, but at the same time she has a level of pragmatism that's understandable and outright common for the work she does. Ogami, however, would probably be run out of town in minutes in any real-life scenario.

Meanwhile, the current arc is just laughable for me. It's like that Sir Ian McKellen scene from Extras, if it was played completely seriously and everyone was super impressed by it for some reason. I love how dumb it is.

Heck yeah, Act-Age! I've been following it pretty regularly, and have been consistently delighted by it. The main character is just top-notch, and there are some just stellar story beats in there. The accuracy is… well, it's a joke, and its misrepresentation of method acting is actively harmful if anyone reads this and tries it without knowing what they're doing, but the narrative is interesting enough that I don't care. Yeah. I wanna punch some of the characters, not always in a good way, but it's fun and compelling, and I recommend giving it a shot if you're into more contemporary drama-based stories in your shonen.

I mean, Usopp's good at aiming, sure, but his role as marksman seems pretty arbitrary, and his eventual goal of "being brave" can be accomplished without specifically being a marksman. He didn't even have a set job at all until after he joined and Luffy was just like "uh, guess we can let that be the thing that you do."

AND, one can argue that one can look at the role of "lookout" as just a catchall term for the wider job of seeking out and obtaining important information, something that Carrot has already been proven to be good at and fits within her role so far. Not to say this proves that she'll join, but letting her be the lookout makes actually more sense on a narrative level than, say, Jinbei as helmsman.