Ace has always had his words on his wrist. The words prove he had a soul even if he wasn't good enough for it. The words on his wrist, though, are confusing? Some people would say.
In a brilliant royal blue, the words in a loopy cursive say, "Now, now, now where are your manners?" Those words do not hurt his feelings no matter what other people say. They don't.
When he finds an old book on manners and pours over it, he eats his pride and asks dandan to teach him how to read.
You would be surprised by the stache of crappy romance novels she has.
Then, he met sabo, I don't know how he knows so much about manners, but I was an eager learner. It has nothing to do with the words on his wrists. No sabo, it didn't.
His first reaction when he saw a little girl with shitty gramps was to spit on her. Then he remembers his times spent on manners. He then promptly discarded that thought and was about to spit on her. But, he saw how he looked at her, a look of awe and wonder. Nobody has looked at him like that before. He then gave a polite introduction,
"I am Portgas D. Ace, future pirate. Who might you be?"
"I am Monkey. D Luffy," she says with wonder in her eye.
. . .
Marco has lived decades with no writing on his wrists. All of his brothers and sisters knew it was a touchy subject for him. I mean, last time somebody said something about it, he threw them overboard and had them on toilet duty for a month. Good times.
So, when his wrist started glowing during a meeting with the other commanders 8 years ago, he was filled with excitement. The commanders excitedly cheering and asking for him to read it out. He looked down at his wrist and started reading as the words started appearing, " Oh, fuck no, you pineapple flaming turkey." The other commanders looked at him awkwardly. Thatch tried to make a joke " Well, looks like you got a feisty one."
When I punched him, it threw six walls out of the other side of the boat. Nobody brought up my soulmate again.
. . .
Shanks was sitting on the rail of the red force, his trusty ship, as they made their way back into the new world. He suddenly got a big foreboding feeling. He gulped.
He then heard a lookout yell, " marine vessel up closing in behind us. " The lookout voice then cracked, and he added on, " With marine hero Garp the fist aboard." He almost fell off of the rail into the sea at that.
He ran to the bow of the ship and saw Garp.
Garp looked steaming mad and yelled, " Shanks, you think you could get away with becoming my grandaughter's soulmate, making her want to be a pirate and give her rebellious ideas and live to tell the tale, could you." Garp said this all with a truly terrifying smile on his face.
I gulped and squeaked out " mommy " when he started throwing cannonballs infused with haki at us.