Ghost Princess Perona (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thatsnotcute) wrote2012-03-10 03:16 pm
thatsnotcute) wrote2012-03-10 03:16 pm
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Name: Roxy
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Current Characters at Luceti:
inkdrops - Miyabi | Okami
its_rose_damnit - Dist the Rose |Tales of the Abyss
bubblywishes - Norma Beatty | Tales of Legendia
Character
Name: Perona
Fandom: One Piece
Gender: Female
Age: Unknown in canon, estimating around 17.
Time Period: Directly after Kuma relocated her off Thriller Bark, but before she meets with Zoro.
Wing Color: Black on the outside and bubblegum pink on the inside.
History: Right here.
Personality:
The best way to describe Perona herself, as well as her personality would be to quote Zoro. When he entered her room with the others for the first time in Thriller Bark, he made a statement that whoever the room belonged to must be very, very pompous. Perona is pretty much the living embodiment of a pompous, bossy, entitled little brat who always gets what she wants or so help you god she will throw a temper tantrum right in your face. This makes her seem very childish and she acts the part of being overly spoiled, and thus has become greedy and self-centered. In fact, it was Perona and her zombie minions that were the ones who raided the Straw Hat’s ship in search of treasure and other valuable items. When Perona found that they had nothing she liked (money, gold, treasure, etc.) she didn’t say “just leave it”, she insisted that every scrap of food the Straw Hats had be taken for use on Thriller Bark, Moria’s ship. She’s materialistic with a capital M won’t settle for going away empty handed.
Another instance of this greed and materialistic behavior is when Perona tries to flee from Thriller bark, when she sees that sticking around while Luffy and his crew are rampaging is not a wise choice. Instead of just leaving and preserving herself, Perona hauls a huge and heavy sack of valuables with her to escape. She refused to leave Moria empty-handed, despite being incredibly loyal to him for close to ten years (the period of time that she served him). This leads towards another key point in Perona’s nature – she is fickle and contradicts herself often, flip-flopping between being a faithful comrade and protecting herself. Her choices and her loyalties as well can be swayed when necessity dictates, or if her life is in immediate danger. To Perona, self-preservation comes before any and all things, and she will run and leave her comrades behind if it means she can escape in one piece. Even so, she still retains a strong and firm attitude, and doesn’t let others boss her around, not even another Shichibukai.
When Kuma appears before her while she is trying to escape, despite him being multiple times stronger than she is, Perona refuses to tell him where her boss, Moria is on the huge island-like ship. Perona does not let other people boss her around (except perhaps Moria), and bares her teeth when she feels like someone is intruding on her. She shows great disdain towards her comrade and fellow crewmate, Absalom, when he enters her room and tries to order her zombies around. “This is my room” she tells him, and demands he leave immediately. Perona can certainly stand up for herself, and she does quite often. She’s a confident and strong young lady, even if her “strength” usually stems from feeling as if she has been insulted somehow. She will not let people get away wil making fun of her, and will stand up for herself in the blink of an eye. While it should be noted that Perona may not need protection most of the time due to her fierce attitude, she says herself that she only joined Moria’s crew for protection and for fun, showcasing her fickleness once again as well.
It should also be noted that Perona adores “cute” things, though her definition of “cute” can be rather…objective. She likes animals, seeing as how all her zombie slaves are the surgically meshed together parts of different animals. While some are indeed cute and squashy looking in appearance (Bearsy, for instance), some are just plain not cute, yet Perona keeps them around. She also enjoys the macabre and things relating to malice and darkness – perhaps relating to the fact that Perona dresses in the “gothic Lolita” fashion. Mesh together those two things, cute and dark, and Perona would definitely squeal with delight. Anything other than that, what Perona deems to be uncute, she dismisses entirely. If it’s not cute, she shows no interest in it.
Despite this fact, however, Perona can be willed into aiding people in need. Even if they happen to be among her enemies, in the case of Zoro. When she and Zoro are both sent to Mihawk’s island, she tends to Zoro’s wounds and helps him recover. Though there’s no telling of just why Perona’s did what she did, it does show that she is not entirely an evil or bad person, she’s just herself. She does what needs to be done or what her Captain orders her to do. She does have a heart under all that bratty, self-indulgent flack and she does use it from time to time, even if the outcome won’t benefit her in a substantial way. In short, Perona is capable of caring for others outside herself. It’s a rare occurrence, but it is possible. She is a mature and intelligent young lady, even if she does not show it a great of the time and acts the opposite.
Strengths:
Physical: Perona’s physical strength is rather lacking, to be completely honest. As a young human girl, she’s really not anyone to look at twice in terms of muscle strength. However, she compensates this with the use of her own special power. By consuming the Horo Horo no Mi (Hollow Hollow Fruit), Perona has gained the unique ability to create a seemingly unlimited amount of ghosts – hollows – from her body. These spirits cannot be cut or caught by any means, and can also split themselves apart to create more ghosts. Thus far, it has not been explained just how many ghosts Perona can create, though by what has been seen, it seems the range is unlimited, and Perona suffers no damage at all when she does this.
The ghosts she creates are a projection of her spirit, and thus Perona can see and hear what they do, as well as feel what they feel, to some degree. An example of this is when she uses her Negative Hollows (which will be explained later) against Usopp. Those hollows were defeated after losing a battle of negativity against Usopp, hunched over as if grief stricken. A second later, we see Perona in the same hunched over position, a gloomy cloud over her, and apologizing to one of her minions for always being hard on him. Though no other instance of this has occurred, it can be assumed that Perona feels what her hollows feel in terms of emotion.
Now, as I stated earlier, Perona profoundly makes use of her ghosts. There are three variations, but only two of which are used as a means to inflict heavy, serious, physical harm. The two she does use in this sense are the Tiny and Large Hollows. These hollows are the only variation of ghosts Perona can create that explode when activated by a snap of Perona’s fingers (Perona also MUST snap her fingers for each hollow she produces, to activate the explosion). The Tiny Hollow is much smaller and weaker than the larger version (obviously), but still has the power to blow a sizeable and deep hole into solid stone. Perona can create dozens of these hollows, which stick and/or cling to her opponent, and thus explode directly on them.
The large hollow works exactly the same as the tiny hollow, but the shockwave it produces is far greater than the tinier version. This hollow, instead of sticking or clinging to the foe, bites down on them and explodes when Perona snaps her fingers.
Also, aside from creating ghosts from her physical body, Perona’s Devil Fruit grants her the ability to remove her own spirit from her physical body, making herself into a ghost. In this form, Perona is literally untouchable and thus pretty much invincible. She cannot be cut, touched, shot, burned, nothing. Any and all attacks on Perona’s ghost form are useless and ineffective. However, she can still create hollows in this form, which attack for her. She can also pass through just about any object and float in midair, just like a real ghost. Unlike a real ghost, though, she is not transparent, so one cannot tell her spirit form from her physical one.
Mental: Despite her misgivings as being bratty and immature, Perona is actually very intelligent. She was not made a key player of Moria’s crew for nothing and it certainly shows in her battle style. Perona always goes into battle with a set plan in mind, and can come up with a new one with relative ease. She knows how to use her powers as well as her wit in the best possible ways, when to use them, and how to utilize them to gather the best results. Perona may be “pompous” as she’s referred to by Zoro, but she is not an idiot. Her battle tactics are actually frighteningly effective, and build up to the point where she starts to get physical.
These tactics include Perona using planning, as I’ve said before, and mainly intimidation and scare tactics to warp her opponent’s mind. A frightful and jumpy opponent cannot think straight or make rational decisions – which is exactly what she aims for. Perona uses her opponent’s fear to overpower them mentally before getting physical with her large and tiny hollows. Her strategies are ones that attack the mind and spirit first and foremost. She acts cocky, confident, and so sure of herself that it, in effect, intimidates her opponents. If her foes think they cannot win, then she’s achieved one goal, and can further her ploy of getting them to surrender or defeat them. Confidence in any battle can play a great role in the outcome.
Perona herself is also the main player in gathering information for Moria via her “Ghost Network” (the ability to create her ghosts and have them span large areas as spies. Because she sees and hears what they do, they make Intel work very easy for her) and the information she gathers with her skills is vital to the role of her captain and all of the other members of her crew.
Emotional: While Perona herself has a fairly stable emotional state, the true terror or Perona’s abilities regarding emotions is the third form of Hollow she can create. These hollows are called Negative Hollows, and they do much of what their name dictates. When these ghosts pass through a person, they hollow out that individual’s spirit of any and all pleasant emotions. It leaves the person with a feeling of despair and a negative outlook of everything about themselves. To the greatest extent, it makes the person fall to their knees, wishing they were never born, or to be reborn as something undesirable. The effects are not permanent, and wear off in about a few minutes, but during the time period of extreme negativity, the person is vulnerable to attack or being caught. These Negative Hollows are the brunt of what Perona uses to attack and capture her enemies, and she relies on them almost indefinitely to secure a victory.
In terms of herself, Perona has a rather good level of emotional restraint. She knows when to keep a level head in situations, especially when her goal is to provoke a negative response in someone (or a positive one, in the case of Usopp). In one instance in the canon, Perona is seen passing her hands through Usopp’s chest while she was in her spirit form, threatening that she would crush his heart and kill him. While she looked cocky and full of herself, as well as positively gleeful, she still kept up a serious act to scare the daylights out of him when she knew she was just bluffing and that she cannot physically touch anything while she is a ghost. If Perona had not been in control of her emotions, it’s very likely that Usopp would have caught on to her deceit, and even how her powers really work faster than he had in canon.
Weaknesses:
Physical: It just so happens that Perona’s greatest strength, her Devil Fruit powers, is also her greatest weakness. Because Perona has eaten the Hollow Hollow Fruit, she has become unable to swim or be submerged in any large body of water. This is her greatest and most well-known physical weakness, the weakness of all Fruit users. If she is placed into any body of water substantially deeper than her, she will ultimately sink like a rock and, to be perfectly honest, she will drown and die. However, being submerged in water does not necessarily mean Perona or any Fruit User will lose their powers, she will just sink. This has been seen in early chapters of One Piece, mainly in the Arlong Park arc where Luffy’s body was submerged in the ocean, yet his neck was stretched out to allow him access to air by two other characters. And again, when Chopper jumped into the ocean in his human-like state, sank, but did not revert to his reindeer form. It can then be assumed that Perona also would not lose her powers, just sink to her doom and not be able to use her powers herself.
This also means she’s weak to a canon-centric item called seastone. It’s a certain kind of stone, said to be a solidified form of the sea itself. This stone is the One Piece equivalent to kryptonite – it sucks away a Devil Fruit User’s powers and leaves them weak and fatigued. Using this stone on her, or anything similar to it, will leave Perona literally powerless. She would not be able to create ghosts, nor would she be able to remove her spirit from her body. If she was placed inside a seastone cage, or had handcuffs made from this stone placed onto her, Perona would immediately become just like any normal human being.
However, Perona’s fruit itself leaves her with a monumental physical weakness as well! When Perona leaves her physical body and wanders around as a ghost, she is literally leaving her body behind. Her spirit separates from her body, leaving her body hollow and much like a lifeless and unmoving doll. In short, her physical body becomes extremely vulnerable the moment Perona leaves it. To counteract this, she usually hides herself before projecting her spirit, but if her body is found and attacked before she has a chance to protect herself or get back into her body, it could very well spell doom for Perona as a whole. It could also be used against her, to get her to surrender. Though the canon does not specify what will happen to her spirit if her body is attacked, it’s obvious Perona values her physical body, and goes to great lengths to preserve it. If her body was threatened, she would have no choice but to comply to one’s demands.
Another weakness of Perona’s spirit form is that, while she cannot be touched or attacked, she herself cannot touch anyone or anything, either. She can only pass through objects; she cannot touch or harm them in any way. That, she leaves to the ghosts she creates and controls.
Mental: While Perona is rather intellectual in a strategically-wise sense, she does not do well when her well thought out plans unravel and things do not go her way. It takes her some time to form a new plan, and during that time, she usually panics and cannot think straight long enough to form a new battle strategy. Perona was so sure of herself and her abilities that when her Negative Hollows did not work to make Usopp Negative – because he already was – she would not accept it. Perona deluded herself to say that she missed him when she attacked him and the others when they entered her room. And even after one Negative Hollow doesn’t work, Perona stubbornly tries attacking with four Negative Hollows at once, assuring herself that such an attack will work and bring her enemy to his knees. She just cannot wrap her head around the fact that a single person in the world exists that can stand up to her Negative Hollows. Because of this, Perona hilariously tries time and time again to cheer up Usopp just enough so she can use her negativity to overpower him. The effects, to be blunt, are something to be desired and seen more as being comical than being a good strategy. So, this goes to show that while Perona has effective mental skills at formulating tactics and plans to win fights, she also has tactics that are so weak they’re just laughable, despite her trying at least three times.
Perona is also stubborn, and this stubbornness as well as perhaps her own overconfidence clouds her judgment when the situation turns most dire for her. The fact that she also has a well-defined “panic state” does not help matters either. Couple that together with a bit of childish naiveté and a load of gullibility and it’s easy to overpower Perona when she’s literally freaking out.
Emotional: As I stated just a moment ago, when things don’t go the way Perona plans, and to a degree Perona just cannot fathom or accept, she panics. The first instance of this was when Usopp showed her that she cannot win against him in a battle of negativity. Perona couldn’t believe it, and immediately screamed in shock and confusion before she fell over, in sheer disbelief. She had never experienced anyone who could combat her Negative Hollows head on, so the shock was enough to jar her emotionally as well as mentally. Her confidence in her ability was shot down, and she had to man up quickly, and come up with another ploy….while running away from Usopp and screaming at the top of her lungs for him to go away and leave her alone. At that point, Perona had lost much of her confidence, because her initial battle tactic – one she probably used in all her fights – had proven to be ineffective. Perona had to rethink her strategy, but she panicked before she could calm down and rationalize.
Later on during her battle with Usopp, Perona was jarred emotionally when she lost her most faithful zombie servant, Bearsy. Bearsy was perhaps Perona’s only “friend” on Thriller Bark, and hiss loss both shocked and enraged her. On top of that and everything else, Usopp caught on to the truth of Perona’s ability, succeeded in finding her physical body, and trapped her in place with a sticky trap once she was back inside her physical body. He then proceeded in using Perona’s past tactics against her – to overpower her mind and spirit with lies and deceit. Usopp used plastic cockroaches, which Perona took to be real, to scare Perona senseless and boggle her rationale while he prepped a fake, ten ton hammer (which was really just an inflatable) and proceeded to threaten her with it. Again, Perona panics and screams out for help from someone, anyone at all. She knows she is going to be defeated, and can’t do a thing about it. She begs to be spared, and cries out for her fallen friend, hoping in vain that he would rush to her rescue once again. Her gullibility and fear overpowers her to an outstanding degree, and Perona literally faints from horror when Usopp uses his fake hammer against her. The emotional strain of possibly being killed for real was too much for Perona to take, thus she succumbed to it and passed out – leading to Usopp’s victory and her defeat.
Samples
First Person:
[This is not what she had planned. Most certainly not. When Perona told Kuma where she wanted to go, she made it very clear that a dark, desolate castle would be the ideal place, not the middle of a frozen lake. Or, really, a half frozen lake.]
A-Aaah! This isn’t where I wanted to go to at all! What part of this place even remotely resembles where I told that horrible giant I wanted to go to?! I-I’m going to die here! I’ll really die! [Perona whimpers, laying herself flat on her pitiful ice slab, creeping as far as she could along the cold, icy surface. She lets out a blood-curdling scream when her whole arm submerges on a patch of thin ice, and scrambles to a thicker, sturdier spot.]
Waaah, Bearsy! Help me! Someone, please, help me! I don’t want to die for real this time! I don’t want to die! Bearsy! [She whimpers again, sniffling as well.] I-If it wasn’t for those stupid Straw Hats and that dumb Long-Nose, none of this would have happened! I would have never had to leave Thriller Bark, and I wouldn’t be stuck here, either! WHY AM I HERE?! I WANT TO GO BACK!
Third Person:
It’s not every day that one wakes up to find themselves covered in creepy crawlies, but then again it’s not every day that one wakes up after being blasted through heaven knows what to find their head resting against a rotting log. A rotting log home to an unnamed amount of said creepy crawlies. A second after Perona feels her face being tickled by that of many tiny insect legs, she opens her eyes to the miserable spectacle.
And proceeds to let out the loudest screech Luceti had heard during a New Feather cycle.
“Aaaaahh! No, get off! Get off me, nooo!” Perona bellows, jumping up and swatting the poor, harmless beetles and ants off her. She could feel then on her arms, in her hair, and…yep, a few were making her chest a nice resting spot. “AAAAAH! PLEASE! PLEASE SOMEONE GET THEM OFF, I CAN’T STAND IT! Bearsy!”
Frantically, Perona waves her arms, slapping bugs off herself and shaking them out of her pink hair. She didn’t even notice the change in temperature, wardrobe, or even scenery. Everything else was secondary until she could remove the skittering insects from her person. The skittering insects that seemed to catch on to the danger and progress to safer, more unmentionable places on her person. Luceti will be graced with its second high-pitched scream of the New Feather cycle.
“Not there, not there, they’re crawling up my skirt, I-I can’t--!” She begins to breathe harder and faster, her legs buckling as a fog begins to fill her head. No, no, she can’t pass out! These aren’t fake bugs like that long-nosed freak used to trick her. These are real bug that was creeping all over her body and getting into places that ought not to be gotten into. “Get them off! Please, please, someone, they’re killing me! Waaah, I don’t like this! I-I don’t like this…!”
Name: Roxy
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E-mail: stardropthief@gmail.com
AIM/Plurk:
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Current Characters at Luceti:
inkdrops - Miyabi | Okamiits_rose_damnit - Dist the Rose |Tales of the Abyssbubblywishes - Norma Beatty | Tales of LegendiaCharacter
Name: Perona
Fandom: One Piece
Gender: Female
Age: Unknown in canon, estimating around 17.
Time Period: Directly after Kuma relocated her off Thriller Bark, but before she meets with Zoro.
Wing Color: Black on the outside and bubblegum pink on the inside.
History: Right here.
Personality:
The best way to describe Perona herself, as well as her personality would be to quote Zoro. When he entered her room with the others for the first time in Thriller Bark, he made a statement that whoever the room belonged to must be very, very pompous. Perona is pretty much the living embodiment of a pompous, bossy, entitled little brat who always gets what she wants or so help you god she will throw a temper tantrum right in your face. This makes her seem very childish and she acts the part of being overly spoiled, and thus has become greedy and self-centered. In fact, it was Perona and her zombie minions that were the ones who raided the Straw Hat’s ship in search of treasure and other valuable items. When Perona found that they had nothing she liked (money, gold, treasure, etc.) she didn’t say “just leave it”, she insisted that every scrap of food the Straw Hats had be taken for use on Thriller Bark, Moria’s ship. She’s materialistic with a capital M won’t settle for going away empty handed.
Another instance of this greed and materialistic behavior is when Perona tries to flee from Thriller bark, when she sees that sticking around while Luffy and his crew are rampaging is not a wise choice. Instead of just leaving and preserving herself, Perona hauls a huge and heavy sack of valuables with her to escape. She refused to leave Moria empty-handed, despite being incredibly loyal to him for close to ten years (the period of time that she served him). This leads towards another key point in Perona’s nature – she is fickle and contradicts herself often, flip-flopping between being a faithful comrade and protecting herself. Her choices and her loyalties as well can be swayed when necessity dictates, or if her life is in immediate danger. To Perona, self-preservation comes before any and all things, and she will run and leave her comrades behind if it means she can escape in one piece. Even so, she still retains a strong and firm attitude, and doesn’t let others boss her around, not even another Shichibukai.
When Kuma appears before her while she is trying to escape, despite him being multiple times stronger than she is, Perona refuses to tell him where her boss, Moria is on the huge island-like ship. Perona does not let other people boss her around (except perhaps Moria), and bares her teeth when she feels like someone is intruding on her. She shows great disdain towards her comrade and fellow crewmate, Absalom, when he enters her room and tries to order her zombies around. “This is my room” she tells him, and demands he leave immediately. Perona can certainly stand up for herself, and she does quite often. She’s a confident and strong young lady, even if her “strength” usually stems from feeling as if she has been insulted somehow. She will not let people get away wil making fun of her, and will stand up for herself in the blink of an eye. While it should be noted that Perona may not need protection most of the time due to her fierce attitude, she says herself that she only joined Moria’s crew for protection and for fun, showcasing her fickleness once again as well.
It should also be noted that Perona adores “cute” things, though her definition of “cute” can be rather…objective. She likes animals, seeing as how all her zombie slaves are the surgically meshed together parts of different animals. While some are indeed cute and squashy looking in appearance (Bearsy, for instance), some are just plain not cute, yet Perona keeps them around. She also enjoys the macabre and things relating to malice and darkness – perhaps relating to the fact that Perona dresses in the “gothic Lolita” fashion. Mesh together those two things, cute and dark, and Perona would definitely squeal with delight. Anything other than that, what Perona deems to be uncute, she dismisses entirely. If it’s not cute, she shows no interest in it.
Despite this fact, however, Perona can be willed into aiding people in need. Even if they happen to be among her enemies, in the case of Zoro. When she and Zoro are both sent to Mihawk’s island, she tends to Zoro’s wounds and helps him recover. Though there’s no telling of just why Perona’s did what she did, it does show that she is not entirely an evil or bad person, she’s just herself. She does what needs to be done or what her Captain orders her to do. She does have a heart under all that bratty, self-indulgent flack and she does use it from time to time, even if the outcome won’t benefit her in a substantial way. In short, Perona is capable of caring for others outside herself. It’s a rare occurrence, but it is possible. She is a mature and intelligent young lady, even if she does not show it a great of the time and acts the opposite.
Strengths:
Physical: Perona’s physical strength is rather lacking, to be completely honest. As a young human girl, she’s really not anyone to look at twice in terms of muscle strength. However, she compensates this with the use of her own special power. By consuming the Horo Horo no Mi (Hollow Hollow Fruit), Perona has gained the unique ability to create a seemingly unlimited amount of ghosts – hollows – from her body. These spirits cannot be cut or caught by any means, and can also split themselves apart to create more ghosts. Thus far, it has not been explained just how many ghosts Perona can create, though by what has been seen, it seems the range is unlimited, and Perona suffers no damage at all when she does this.
The ghosts she creates are a projection of her spirit, and thus Perona can see and hear what they do, as well as feel what they feel, to some degree. An example of this is when she uses her Negative Hollows (which will be explained later) against Usopp. Those hollows were defeated after losing a battle of negativity against Usopp, hunched over as if grief stricken. A second later, we see Perona in the same hunched over position, a gloomy cloud over her, and apologizing to one of her minions for always being hard on him. Though no other instance of this has occurred, it can be assumed that Perona feels what her hollows feel in terms of emotion.
Now, as I stated earlier, Perona profoundly makes use of her ghosts. There are three variations, but only two of which are used as a means to inflict heavy, serious, physical harm. The two she does use in this sense are the Tiny and Large Hollows. These hollows are the only variation of ghosts Perona can create that explode when activated by a snap of Perona’s fingers (Perona also MUST snap her fingers for each hollow she produces, to activate the explosion). The Tiny Hollow is much smaller and weaker than the larger version (obviously), but still has the power to blow a sizeable and deep hole into solid stone. Perona can create dozens of these hollows, which stick and/or cling to her opponent, and thus explode directly on them.
The large hollow works exactly the same as the tiny hollow, but the shockwave it produces is far greater than the tinier version. This hollow, instead of sticking or clinging to the foe, bites down on them and explodes when Perona snaps her fingers.
Also, aside from creating ghosts from her physical body, Perona’s Devil Fruit grants her the ability to remove her own spirit from her physical body, making herself into a ghost. In this form, Perona is literally untouchable and thus pretty much invincible. She cannot be cut, touched, shot, burned, nothing. Any and all attacks on Perona’s ghost form are useless and ineffective. However, she can still create hollows in this form, which attack for her. She can also pass through just about any object and float in midair, just like a real ghost. Unlike a real ghost, though, she is not transparent, so one cannot tell her spirit form from her physical one.
Mental: Despite her misgivings as being bratty and immature, Perona is actually very intelligent. She was not made a key player of Moria’s crew for nothing and it certainly shows in her battle style. Perona always goes into battle with a set plan in mind, and can come up with a new one with relative ease. She knows how to use her powers as well as her wit in the best possible ways, when to use them, and how to utilize them to gather the best results. Perona may be “pompous” as she’s referred to by Zoro, but she is not an idiot. Her battle tactics are actually frighteningly effective, and build up to the point where she starts to get physical.
These tactics include Perona using planning, as I’ve said before, and mainly intimidation and scare tactics to warp her opponent’s mind. A frightful and jumpy opponent cannot think straight or make rational decisions – which is exactly what she aims for. Perona uses her opponent’s fear to overpower them mentally before getting physical with her large and tiny hollows. Her strategies are ones that attack the mind and spirit first and foremost. She acts cocky, confident, and so sure of herself that it, in effect, intimidates her opponents. If her foes think they cannot win, then she’s achieved one goal, and can further her ploy of getting them to surrender or defeat them. Confidence in any battle can play a great role in the outcome.
Perona herself is also the main player in gathering information for Moria via her “Ghost Network” (the ability to create her ghosts and have them span large areas as spies. Because she sees and hears what they do, they make Intel work very easy for her) and the information she gathers with her skills is vital to the role of her captain and all of the other members of her crew.
Emotional: While Perona herself has a fairly stable emotional state, the true terror or Perona’s abilities regarding emotions is the third form of Hollow she can create. These hollows are called Negative Hollows, and they do much of what their name dictates. When these ghosts pass through a person, they hollow out that individual’s spirit of any and all pleasant emotions. It leaves the person with a feeling of despair and a negative outlook of everything about themselves. To the greatest extent, it makes the person fall to their knees, wishing they were never born, or to be reborn as something undesirable. The effects are not permanent, and wear off in about a few minutes, but during the time period of extreme negativity, the person is vulnerable to attack or being caught. These Negative Hollows are the brunt of what Perona uses to attack and capture her enemies, and she relies on them almost indefinitely to secure a victory.
In terms of herself, Perona has a rather good level of emotional restraint. She knows when to keep a level head in situations, especially when her goal is to provoke a negative response in someone (or a positive one, in the case of Usopp). In one instance in the canon, Perona is seen passing her hands through Usopp’s chest while she was in her spirit form, threatening that she would crush his heart and kill him. While she looked cocky and full of herself, as well as positively gleeful, she still kept up a serious act to scare the daylights out of him when she knew she was just bluffing and that she cannot physically touch anything while she is a ghost. If Perona had not been in control of her emotions, it’s very likely that Usopp would have caught on to her deceit, and even how her powers really work faster than he had in canon.
Weaknesses:
Physical: It just so happens that Perona’s greatest strength, her Devil Fruit powers, is also her greatest weakness. Because Perona has eaten the Hollow Hollow Fruit, she has become unable to swim or be submerged in any large body of water. This is her greatest and most well-known physical weakness, the weakness of all Fruit users. If she is placed into any body of water substantially deeper than her, she will ultimately sink like a rock and, to be perfectly honest, she will drown and die. However, being submerged in water does not necessarily mean Perona or any Fruit User will lose their powers, she will just sink. This has been seen in early chapters of One Piece, mainly in the Arlong Park arc where Luffy’s body was submerged in the ocean, yet his neck was stretched out to allow him access to air by two other characters. And again, when Chopper jumped into the ocean in his human-like state, sank, but did not revert to his reindeer form. It can then be assumed that Perona also would not lose her powers, just sink to her doom and not be able to use her powers herself.
This also means she’s weak to a canon-centric item called seastone. It’s a certain kind of stone, said to be a solidified form of the sea itself. This stone is the One Piece equivalent to kryptonite – it sucks away a Devil Fruit User’s powers and leaves them weak and fatigued. Using this stone on her, or anything similar to it, will leave Perona literally powerless. She would not be able to create ghosts, nor would she be able to remove her spirit from her body. If she was placed inside a seastone cage, or had handcuffs made from this stone placed onto her, Perona would immediately become just like any normal human being.
However, Perona’s fruit itself leaves her with a monumental physical weakness as well! When Perona leaves her physical body and wanders around as a ghost, she is literally leaving her body behind. Her spirit separates from her body, leaving her body hollow and much like a lifeless and unmoving doll. In short, her physical body becomes extremely vulnerable the moment Perona leaves it. To counteract this, she usually hides herself before projecting her spirit, but if her body is found and attacked before she has a chance to protect herself or get back into her body, it could very well spell doom for Perona as a whole. It could also be used against her, to get her to surrender. Though the canon does not specify what will happen to her spirit if her body is attacked, it’s obvious Perona values her physical body, and goes to great lengths to preserve it. If her body was threatened, she would have no choice but to comply to one’s demands.
Another weakness of Perona’s spirit form is that, while she cannot be touched or attacked, she herself cannot touch anyone or anything, either. She can only pass through objects; she cannot touch or harm them in any way. That, she leaves to the ghosts she creates and controls.
Mental: While Perona is rather intellectual in a strategically-wise sense, she does not do well when her well thought out plans unravel and things do not go her way. It takes her some time to form a new plan, and during that time, she usually panics and cannot think straight long enough to form a new battle strategy. Perona was so sure of herself and her abilities that when her Negative Hollows did not work to make Usopp Negative – because he already was – she would not accept it. Perona deluded herself to say that she missed him when she attacked him and the others when they entered her room. And even after one Negative Hollow doesn’t work, Perona stubbornly tries attacking with four Negative Hollows at once, assuring herself that such an attack will work and bring her enemy to his knees. She just cannot wrap her head around the fact that a single person in the world exists that can stand up to her Negative Hollows. Because of this, Perona hilariously tries time and time again to cheer up Usopp just enough so she can use her negativity to overpower him. The effects, to be blunt, are something to be desired and seen more as being comical than being a good strategy. So, this goes to show that while Perona has effective mental skills at formulating tactics and plans to win fights, she also has tactics that are so weak they’re just laughable, despite her trying at least three times.
Perona is also stubborn, and this stubbornness as well as perhaps her own overconfidence clouds her judgment when the situation turns most dire for her. The fact that she also has a well-defined “panic state” does not help matters either. Couple that together with a bit of childish naiveté and a load of gullibility and it’s easy to overpower Perona when she’s literally freaking out.
Emotional: As I stated just a moment ago, when things don’t go the way Perona plans, and to a degree Perona just cannot fathom or accept, she panics. The first instance of this was when Usopp showed her that she cannot win against him in a battle of negativity. Perona couldn’t believe it, and immediately screamed in shock and confusion before she fell over, in sheer disbelief. She had never experienced anyone who could combat her Negative Hollows head on, so the shock was enough to jar her emotionally as well as mentally. Her confidence in her ability was shot down, and she had to man up quickly, and come up with another ploy….while running away from Usopp and screaming at the top of her lungs for him to go away and leave her alone. At that point, Perona had lost much of her confidence, because her initial battle tactic – one she probably used in all her fights – had proven to be ineffective. Perona had to rethink her strategy, but she panicked before she could calm down and rationalize.
Later on during her battle with Usopp, Perona was jarred emotionally when she lost her most faithful zombie servant, Bearsy. Bearsy was perhaps Perona’s only “friend” on Thriller Bark, and hiss loss both shocked and enraged her. On top of that and everything else, Usopp caught on to the truth of Perona’s ability, succeeded in finding her physical body, and trapped her in place with a sticky trap once she was back inside her physical body. He then proceeded in using Perona’s past tactics against her – to overpower her mind and spirit with lies and deceit. Usopp used plastic cockroaches, which Perona took to be real, to scare Perona senseless and boggle her rationale while he prepped a fake, ten ton hammer (which was really just an inflatable) and proceeded to threaten her with it. Again, Perona panics and screams out for help from someone, anyone at all. She knows she is going to be defeated, and can’t do a thing about it. She begs to be spared, and cries out for her fallen friend, hoping in vain that he would rush to her rescue once again. Her gullibility and fear overpowers her to an outstanding degree, and Perona literally faints from horror when Usopp uses his fake hammer against her. The emotional strain of possibly being killed for real was too much for Perona to take, thus she succumbed to it and passed out – leading to Usopp’s victory and her defeat.
Samples
First Person:
[This is not what she had planned. Most certainly not. When Perona told Kuma where she wanted to go, she made it very clear that a dark, desolate castle would be the ideal place, not the middle of a frozen lake. Or, really, a half frozen lake.]
A-Aaah! This isn’t where I wanted to go to at all! What part of this place even remotely resembles where I told that horrible giant I wanted to go to?! I-I’m going to die here! I’ll really die! [Perona whimpers, laying herself flat on her pitiful ice slab, creeping as far as she could along the cold, icy surface. She lets out a blood-curdling scream when her whole arm submerges on a patch of thin ice, and scrambles to a thicker, sturdier spot.]
Waaah, Bearsy! Help me! Someone, please, help me! I don’t want to die for real this time! I don’t want to die! Bearsy! [She whimpers again, sniffling as well.] I-If it wasn’t for those stupid Straw Hats and that dumb Long-Nose, none of this would have happened! I would have never had to leave Thriller Bark, and I wouldn’t be stuck here, either! WHY AM I HERE?! I WANT TO GO BACK!
Third Person:
It’s not every day that one wakes up to find themselves covered in creepy crawlies, but then again it’s not every day that one wakes up after being blasted through heaven knows what to find their head resting against a rotting log. A rotting log home to an unnamed amount of said creepy crawlies. A second after Perona feels her face being tickled by that of many tiny insect legs, she opens her eyes to the miserable spectacle.
And proceeds to let out the loudest screech Luceti had heard during a New Feather cycle.
“Aaaaahh! No, get off! Get off me, nooo!” Perona bellows, jumping up and swatting the poor, harmless beetles and ants off her. She could feel then on her arms, in her hair, and…yep, a few were making her chest a nice resting spot. “AAAAAH! PLEASE! PLEASE SOMEONE GET THEM OFF, I CAN’T STAND IT! Bearsy!”
Frantically, Perona waves her arms, slapping bugs off herself and shaking them out of her pink hair. She didn’t even notice the change in temperature, wardrobe, or even scenery. Everything else was secondary until she could remove the skittering insects from her person. The skittering insects that seemed to catch on to the danger and progress to safer, more unmentionable places on her person. Luceti will be graced with its second high-pitched scream of the New Feather cycle.
“Not there, not there, they’re crawling up my skirt, I-I can’t--!” She begins to breathe harder and faster, her legs buckling as a fog begins to fill her head. No, no, she can’t pass out! These aren’t fake bugs like that long-nosed freak used to trick her. These are real bug that was creeping all over her body and getting into places that ought not to be gotten into. “Get them off! Please, please, someone, they’re killing me! Waaah, I don’t like this! I-I don’t like this…!”