#also luffys the main character anyone and everyone in the series furthers his character development asdfghjkl

[flaynbestgirl]

...im not sure this person knows what a character solely existing as a plot device actually looks like

[laws-yellow-submarine]

please, i beg of you, tell me about your ocs

Oh anon you don’t know what you’ve unleashed lmfao every time someone asks about my OCs, a feral monkey-brained idiot springs forth lmfao ANYWAY I’d LOVE to talk about my disaster children!!

So first is Valentine Skylar, who WILL have a fic eventually, I’m just kinda...stuck on the beginning chapters, so it’s taking me a while to post it (I also feel like because I’ve been developing her character and this story for over a year now, I’m a little anxious about actually writing it lol like I can’t write it as perfect as it all is in my head lol). Basically, she’s a Disaster Bi (TM) who accidentally ate the Mieru-Mieru no Mi (credit to @charliedoyleloves for coming up with the name a while back!!), which granted her the ability to manipulate light particles/photons/whatever they’re called (science!). While it CAN have offensive uses, she mostly uses it for defense, especially sneaking around since she can use it to camouflage/turn invisible. She also later learns to create force fields with it (think Violet from The Incredibles! I...accidentally made it the same powers without realizing it...but oh well! lol) While camouflaged one day, she sneaks onto Law’s sub so she can escape her hella abusive family, and after he finds out she manages to convince him not to immediately kill/dismember her, and they agree to never speak again after getting to the next island. So the next day she leaves, and later Law comes across her being accosted by some goons who he later learns work for her parents, but what intrigues him is they have Doflamingo’s jolly roger, so he’s like “what does she have to do with him?” and saves her, allows her to travel with them (she’s NOT an official crewmember though), and tries to see how she might be useful to his dream. Thing is though, she DOESN’T know anything about Doflamingo, since she’s adamantly refused to get involved in the “Family Business”, and only recognizes the jolly roger from the safe in her family’s basement. But it ends up being really interesting (imo, eventually lol) because she definitely puts Law up on some kind of “Savior Pedestal” and obviously that’s NOT him, especially since on his end he’s just using her to try and further his goal. It’s an EPICALLY LONG slow burn (cause I can’t do anything less), and it’s gonna involve a lot of character growth on a lot of different fronts (I hope lol).

My SECOND disaster child is Monkey D. Hazel, Luffy’s older sister (She’s 21 when he’s 17, so 4 years older). I never planned on writing a fic for her, but now she’s the only one I’m actively writing for? Lol It’s mostly that I can take a slightly more relaxed approach with her fic, so if I’m stressed out about my Law fic, this is a good one to work on (plus, good excuse to re-read/re-watch the series!). I don’t wanna get too in depth in what happens, since I am actually writing about her now, but her dream is to write the greatest story ever told, and so obviously she’s following her brother along his dream to become the Pirate King. As they pick up crew members, they get added to the story, and by the time they’re done they’ll have a record of how each of them achieved their goals, something first hand that can’t be blemished by the WG or over-embellished by other medias. Starting off, her main fighting style is hand-to-hand/kicking, but I wanna give her a weapon at some point (still deciding what kind, I’m thinking throwing knives for one of them, maybe a gun for emergencies, and like a dagger or something? Idk, I don’t want her to be overloaded with weapons, but especially pre-Enies Lobby, she’s...not weak, but could use the leg up, ya know?). Ace is her ex, I’ll go into more detail in the fic about why they broke up, but the main reason is that he was leaving to become a pirate and she was staying behind to wait for Luffy. She hasn’t been with anyone else since, though (Also before anyone asks; Hazel never considered Ace to be her brother while they were growing up. After Sabo “died” and as she grew older she started to remember him fondly as a sort of little brother, but Ace was always pretty much her age so she only saw him as a close friend. After they broke up she would refer to him as “practically her brother”, but she still didn’t consider him as such. She’s also got a bit of a “Mom Complex” from taking care of Luffy since they were literal children, so she ACTS like a big sister to everyone in a way, even if she doesn’t view them as a familial relationship). This one is also an epic slow burn, just cause I like to build the relationship AND the tension lol, but ultimately Ace is NOT her love interest in this, even though they do share some moments. If you’d like to check out her story (only 1 chapter so far but I’m working on the second one now! Things should pick up once they get the Merry...), you can do so here (FF.net) or here (AO3) I’m also planning on changing the rating on AO3, I just wasn’t sure what all I’d be putting in yet but after thinking about it I am gonna up the rating (and warn for violence, just in case lol). 

Also because I wanna mention it, fun fact about the title Together With Fruit! The genus of the plant “witch-hazel” is “Hamamelis”, which is Latin for “Together With Fruit”. I was originally going to have Hazel’s epithet be “Witch” Hazel, which is why I looked it up, but I’ve since changed it after looking up some other options (spoilers lolol)

[creative-type]

Worth A Thousand Words III: Oda and Stealth Character Development

So...what’s the point of the Skypiea arc? It’s a question One Piece fans and detractors alike ask. I don’t know the answer, but it was probably because Oda thought it would be cool. By its very nature One Piece is not a tightly woven story. Rather, it’s  a sprawling adventure epic, and it does sprawl epically.

Skypiea is, however, an excellent arc when it comes to Straw Hat development, and today I want to focus on one scene in particular with regards to my favorite Nico Robin. 

No, not that one. 

While there is a certain significance to the fact that a survivalist like Robin would choose to side with the Straw Hats over the hugely powerful Enel, the moment Zoro catches Robin is more important to Zoro than Robin. He was the most openly against her, the one who trusted her the least for the longest amount of time. Here Oda is showing us in big flashing lights that, yeah, Zoro has accepted Robin as part of the crew. 

But I don’t want to talk about big, flashy character moments. I want to talk about this

Robin actually gets a pretty decent chunk of screen time during the Sky Island Saga as a whole. It was easier back then because Oda was juggling six main characters instead of nine, but it’s pretty easy to tell he was giving Robin special focus. 

This makes sense. Firstly, Robin was a former enemy, so there’s a need to separate Nico Robin from her Miss All Sunday persona. Secondly, as important as Robin’s dreams are to the narrative as a whole, her position on the ship is the only one that isn’t strictly necessary. Any pirate crew requires fighters, cooks, navigators and the like, but very few would deem  “archaeologist” as a position needing to be filled. So immediately after adding her to the crew Oda makes up a situation where Robin’s skills are helpful and necessary

In this scene Robin also establishes she’s the only one in the crew who’s even heard of the sky islands, while giving some much-needed wisdom to Nami. This, along with what we’ve seen in chapter 218 and the end of 217 gives us what we need to know about Robin’s personality and position in the Straw Hat’s crew. Then shortly after stealing Jaya’s eternal pose from Masira (showing off yet another skill usually relegated to Nami) Robin almost disappears from the narrative entirely and is largely absent from the Jaya sub-arc.

To be fair, up until this point she had been wearing Nami’s clothes, and Robin is, like, almost a foot taller than she is. Some shopping is justifiable here, but it brings me to one of the most important things to keep in mind when analyzing Robin as a character:

Isolation and Distance

One of the best ways to visually convey that a character is emotionally distant is to physically separate them from other people. When Robin first showed up as Miss All Sunday she was sailing the ocean alone. During her confrontation with the Straw Hats about their route she sat far above them where she couldn’t be touched. She left that argument with only her rad turtle ship for company, and spent a surprisingly large amount of the Baroque Works Saga apart from Crocodile despite ostensibly being his partner in crime.

Robin continues to be less than engaged after joining the crew. Luffy, Chopper, and Usopp  fool off with one another constantly. Sanji and Zoro fight. Even Nami is known to smack the rest upside the head when they’re being stupid. Robin alone sits above all their antics, not showing her first face fault in a series lousy with them until well after the timeskip.

It’s pretty easy to pick up in the dialogue that Robin never calls any of the Straw Hats by their actual names, preferring to refer to them by their occupation (or their nose, in Usopp’s case). But the use of impersonal nicknames can’t be the reader’s only clue to Robin’s personality. Both Vivi and Robin have a habit of calling Zoro “Mr. Bushido”, but while the desert princess is kind, personable, and if anything cares a little too much, Robin is distant, standoffish, and at times even cold towards others around her. 

You can even glean some insight from her fighting style. Robin doesn’t have to be in the same room with someone to kill them. She attacks from a distance, relying on stealth and surprise to snap necks and dislocate limbs. It’s brutally efficient and deeply impersonal, perfect for an assassin - or, perhaps, a young girl who was forced to learn on the fly how to fight against much larger opponents who showed no restraint or mercy.  

This is something that was emphasized more in the anime where they had the benefit of knowing Robin’s backstory ahead of time and working little clues into the post-Alabasta filler. They’re a little on the nose at times, but episode 131 is a good example of what I’m talking about here, especially when emphasizing the fact that during the early chapters after joining the crew Robin often doesn’t speak unless directly addressed. To quote Oda in the Volume 71 SBS:

Reader: Robin always talks about creepy things in front of the crew. But her own thoughts, she often thinks of fun stuff like “cats” or “Dress Rosa”. Why doesn’t Robin talk about these things with the crew to make them laugh?

Oda: Even though Robin likes cute things, she’s a bit dark/creepy herself, so if she tries to put these cut thoughts into words there is a chance it may come out as scary/ominous. That’s the kind of woman Robin is.

Robin censers herself to avoid sounding weird. There’s enough evidence of her macabre sense of humor (spoke aloud) to assume that she has embraced her morbid self...most of the time. But Robin has been an outcast her entire life. Even before the Buster Call the citizens of Ohara were calling her demon/monster/creep/insert appropriate insult here.

(For those who don’t remember, the bruise on her cheek is from the other kids who were throwing rocks at her )

Robin spends large stretches of the Skypiea arc by herself, which further emphasizes the importance of what group interaction we do see. Robin has been hiding behind a well-crafted facade for nigh on twenty years because she needed to be a demon in order to survive the cutthroat world in which she lived. 

Which takes us to point number two

Survival

Robin is all about living to see another day. Or she was until Crocodile shanked her (more on this below) Because of her past, she views the world through the lens of a survivor. It shapes how she thinks and how she acts, and Robin at this point doesn’t know any other way to live. 

Robin has been miserably lonely for a long, long time, but believes if she allows herself to get close to others they’ll betray her. She learned the hard way not to trust anyone and that to let your guard down is to die. We see in Alabasta that Robin isn’t afraid to use deadly force against those who get in her way. 

She’s got a bit of a mean streak, too. Though Robin didn’t kill Tagashi, she almost crippled her. That leg injury could have ended Tashigi’s career as a swordsman, which is almost crueler than killing her outright.

When Robin’s backstory is revealed in full the audience is always shown as Robin being the one betrayed, and never the betrayer. I think this helps garner sympathy, but her interaction with Crocodile shows that she’s not above a little backstabbing herself. Aokiji says that every organization she’s ever been a part of no longer exists, and I think that’s only possible if her reputation is at least somewhat deserved. When it comes to finding out the truth of the Void Century, Robin has literally the worst tunnel vision ever.

Which brings me to my last point

Openness to Change

Throughout the Sky Island Saga Robin is a woman who has lost her reason to live. Her only lead to the Rio Poneglyph was a dead end, and she doesn’t find Roger’s message until the end of the arc. That leaves a big chunk of time where she’s staying with the Straw Hats just because she can.

I think if she were as truly as fiercely pragmatic as she (and others) claim then she has no business on the Going Merry. Half of what the Straw Hats do is idiotic and should get them killed, and it’s amazing that they’ve survived this long as it is. Since Robin had resigned herself to death during the tail end of the Alabasta arc, we can assume that the idea of dying doesn’t bother her. Yes, Luffy made her go on, but she’s still stuck in this directionless limbo.   

This is important because it gives Robin something other to focus on than the Void Century. Her desire to find the True History consumed her to the point where she was willing to work with Crocodile for four years and bring a “good” country to the brink of ruin. Without this obsession driving every decision Robin makes, she can take a step back and see the Straw Hat Pirates for what they really are.

The Stealth Character Development

Robin is not the focus of chapter 253. It’s a transition chapter situated between the first and second halves of the Skypea arc. The Straw Hats have reunited had their obligatory split the party moment that happen with frighteningly regularity. The crew are setting up camp as night approaches, comparing notes of what they’ve discovered so far.

Until this point, Robin has been with Zoro and Nami. These two make up 2/3 of the Straw Hats who showed initial distrust to Robin, and at this point Zoro stil hasn’t accepted her as one of their own. Yet they treat her with respect, and Nami especially seems to look up to her as an older sister figure.

Then Nami finds the other half of Cricket’s house, and without hesitation Zoro follows the comparatively weaker crew mate through the incredibly dangerous forest, which displays a trust for one another that would be very appealing to someone like Robin.

When the Straw Hats finally reunite, everyone is on good terms with one another. Remember, at this they’ve have stumbled into the middle of a civil war, made enemies with an unknown entity with a god complex, branded themselves as criminals, and almost gotten their ship destroyed. Some of their misfortune is just that - misfortune. But bad decision making plays at least a part of their current circumstance. It would be easy to turn on one another, and I think most pirates would. Just see how Usopp reacts when he sees what’s happened to the Merry

Anyone who has read the Water 7 arc knows how much Usopp loves this ship, but his first concern is Chopper. Compare to how any one of the Baroque Works agents reacted when someone failed a mission. Instead of falling apart during a time of crisis, the Straw Hats come closer together. 

Chapter 253 begins with the crew setting up camp. Once again Robin goes off and does her own thing, this time finding a hunk of rock salt to use for cooking. Sanji predictably praises her, but he also reveals that he’s got a brain in his head by saying how important salt is to survival. Tick another box in the Straw Hat’s favor.

Every one of the Straw Hats helps set up camp, even the captain (useless as he may be). More than that, they each reveal a little of their talents. It’s sort of a reverse of what happens earlier in the arc when Robin showed off for the rest of the Straw Hat’s benefit. Through this Robin sees that the Straw Hats aren’t just good fighters, but smart and skilled as well. 

After establishing the location of the gold and making plans for the next day, Robin makes a practical suggestion

This sequence marks the beginning of Robin’s stealth character development. She’s speaking here as a pragmatist and a survivor. Her point is valid, and any sensible person would have agreed with her. 

The Straw Hat Pirates are many things, but sensible isn’t one of them. Luffy turns to Usopp in complete disbelief, while Usopp basically says “Go easy on her, Cap, there’s no way she could have known.”

Until this point, Robin has not been questioned by the Straw Hats. She’s not seen this sort of reaction directed at her, especially by Luffy. Her face says it all

Robin’s expression is pretty neutral here, but you can’t hide that sweat drop XD. She’s genuinely concerned that she’s made some sort of mistake. Remember, in Robin’s dog-eat-dog world a making a mistake is tantamount to death. She’s spent twenty years allying with people who at the very least distrust her, and more often than not try to kill her. And now, stuck up in in such a precarious position 10.000 meters above ground she has to be especially careful.

It’s okay, Robin, you’ve not done anything wrong. Luffy is just a dork

Note that Nami - the other survivalist in the crew - immediately jumps to her defense. They’re outnumbered by Zoro and Sanji, who have already made a giant bonfire. 

Before we know it, the Straw Hats are partying with a bunch of wild wolves (Oda, plz...). They’re stuck deep in enemy territory on the night before a planned raid on the city of gold...and the Straw Hat Pirates are having a blast. Usopp’s playing the drums, Nami’s getting plastered, the rest are dancing their little hearts away, and Robin...Robin is smiling. This has got to be one of the most surreal, bizarre situations she’s ever seen.

 Which brings us back to the image I started with

This says a lot about where Robin is at this point in the story. We can’t see her face clearly, but it’s established on the other half of the spread that she’s enjoying herself. Yet she remains distant, both physically and emotionally. The only thing that’s keeping Robin from joining in is Robin herself.

The Skypiea arc is important to Robin’s development because it rekindles her dream, but more than that it gives us moments like this where Robin is exposed to something she’s desired for twenty years, something we see later she’s always wanted but never believed that she would have.

The Straw Hat Pirates accept Robin unconditionally and show her a side of life that she’s never seen before. Even without knowing her entire backstory, by the time the Water 7 arc rolls around the audience genuinely believes that Robin would sacrifice her life, and the lives of every one else in the world, just to save the Straw Hat Pirates, and that wouldn’t be possible if Oda hadn’t given us this scene and others like it. 

To put it another way, I fully believe that Robin would still make the same decisions during Water 7/Enies Lobby regardless of whether she found Roger’s message or not. The Skypiean Poneglyph furthers Robin’s part of the plot, but chapter 253 furthers her character arc.

What makes this all the more impressive is that Oda trusts his readers enough to figure it out for themselves. Unlike the anime, he never calls attention to Robin’s isolation and her gradual warming to the crew. Gan Fall wakes up on the very next page, and the focus shifts to more exposition, ending with the big reveal of what vearth is and why in the it’s so important. The development is stealthy. 

Oda never makes a big deal of when Robin starts calling the crew by their real names during Thriller Bark. He doesn’t shove it in our face when she feels comfortable enough to tell Franky off for being stupid in Chopper’s body during Punk Hazard. He’s constantly using small moments all throughout the series to show how the crew has changed and grown, which is partially why people don’t think the characters have much depth.

It’s there, but without reading carefully it can be lost with everything else that’s going on. Just compare the Skypiean party to the end of Enies Lobby and tell me that Robin hasn’t changed. I dare you.

[tumblunni]

Man i'm remembering how raw all of Nami's early arcs were in One Piece and how much it sucks that she just got completely sidelined later on and increasingly turned into a sex symbol as well as being pushed further into the box of 'token weak normal human who can never win a fight' while usopp eventually escaped it. Oh except she can sometomes win sexualized fights against other sexualized women. *sigh* That moment where she got fuckin assualted ny an invisible man while naked in the shower and it was all played as sexy to the audience and sanji makes a shitty joke about wishing he had the invisible power to perv on girls and then EVERYONE ELSE EXCEPT NAMI gets some damn resolution on beating up invisibiluty asshole and its clear the whole thing was just an excuse for the author to show tits and her feelings dont really matter. Oh and the fuckin literal soap bath battle with the lady whose power is magic soap that makes people extra slippery and shiny like JESUS CHRIST BRO

Anyway lets not go on for an hour about the bad nami stuff and instead remember the great stuff!

Like that FUCKIN RAW moment in her backstory arc where theyve played the reveal of her being part of Arlong's crew SO WELL that you genuinely cant tell if she was really evil all along and is really betraying everyone. And then they slap you right in the face with what seems to be a scene of her murdering usopp! And its just done so damn great and dark and shocking, like right down to the framing of it where it looks like he escaped for a second and then he barely has time to gasp out a word before she stabs him. And they let this ride for a decently long amount of time too before revealing she's not evil after all. Just enough time to sink in and make you believe it! And the circumstances of the reveal are SO DAMN GREAT, yo! I think its straight up the most badass heroic thing anyone has ever done in the entire series and i hate how it doesnt get remembered much or aknowledged as much as the bigger more dramatic fights.

Cos you see...yeah Nami was not in fact evil and was just pretending to be loyal to these villains because theyd been blackmailing her for years ans she had a plan to trick her way out of it and wanted to keep her friends safe from being involved (and loads of other complex shit!) But she REALLY FUCKIN DEDICATED HERSELF TO HER ACTING cos she knew just how damn dangerous these bastards are and how much it was gonna take to fool them. The real reason Usopp got cut off mid sentence into a strangled scream is because Nami stabbed HERSELF to fake killing him! She wrecked the shit out of her arm and rubbed the blood on him and told him to stay down, and then managed to not let out the slightest sound of her pain and continue pulling off her amazing fake villain acting while bleeding out underneath her sleeve. Its not really brought up again but from the degree of how goddamn much she injured that hand and how she wasnt able to get it treated until after HOURS OF HIDING THE PAIN, it probably would have left her with permenant muscle spasms and difficulty moving her fingers. And she's a mapmaker so thats an injury that would really affect her career for the rest of her life. She risked all that to save a friend who believed she'd betrayed him and was 100% down to fight at that moment! Like seriously they also had some great development with usppp realizing he was wrong and working hard to overcome his cowardliness and put his own life on the line to help save Nami later on. It was such a good arc!!

Oh and of course theres the entire context to this whole thing that this villain group actually murdered nami's mother when she was a kid and groomed her into joining them. And right from the age of like six years old she was already planning how to out-manipulate the manipulators and gain the trust enough to take revenge someday. And she faked joining the villains, faked being fine with it, faked not mourning her goddamn mom. She let herself be treated like a heartless demon child by everyone she ever knew, so she could make these monsters believe she'd betrayed them and thus someday save them all. Save all those people who never even fuckin believed in her! And the villain dude fuckin branded her like a cow and she was so traumatized she tried to dig the tattoo out with a knife and seriously man her left arm must be so damn scarred and i hate that they dont atually show it just cos 'she's gotta be sexy'. They used to show the scar underneath her life-affirming happier replacement tattoo, but it just got phased out around the same time her waist became 2cm wide...

Also it really fuckin sucked that this arc just ended with Nami's decade long plan to save her family failing and she cries into the dirt and then all the male characters save her aand defeaat the bad guy instead. Even worse that this started becoming a trend where every new arc from now on would have some sort of femle character who was very sad and her grand character development was admitting she needed luffy to save her and then everyone else except her gets to defeat the bad guy she has this deep personal reason to want to defeat. Sigh!

So yeh seriously Oda i know ur tryin real damn hard to amp every damn battle as the biggest thing ever now but nothing will ever be bigger than back when you had more simple fully realized concepts that gave the whole cast time to shine and aalso very specifocally nami who was the best most goddamn engaging character and you suddenly somehow forgot this. "Woman who is so much of a damn hero that she'd stab herself to save her friends who didnt even believe she wasnt evil" is like the fucking apex of what this series has ever achieved and i wpuld personally like to remember her always as the way she was in that moment.

Also seriously it would have been way better if nami got to contribute towards defeating arlong AT ALL, and especiaally if she could have dealt the final blow. Like yeah she isnt some beastly strong superpowers guy like luffy and co, but it would have been so satisfying to see all her intelligence and planning pay off! Instead of just bullshit 'arlong somehow magically knew everything she was ever planning and he only let her believe he was fooled so he could have fun shooting down her hopes when she got so close'. Nah yknow what would have been really satisfying and great? If we still had that moment but then it was revealed nami actually double-doublecrossed him! Like he's boasting about seeing through her whole plan and then suddenly he stumbles and realizes she poisoned his drink or something. Would have been extra mega double triple satisfying if this was after him actually beating all the main brawn-over-brain characters in a physical fight, and it looked like our heroes were all doomed but she managed to take down this guy they couod never hope to defeat. Though some very simple clever trick that he never expected because he underestimated her. And also this could work well to introduce the seven warlords kf the sea without immediately undercutting them, like if we clearly show that arlong actually WAS wildly out of their league and they genuinely could not defeat one of the warlords at their current power level, they just got lucky with a creative solution. That would have worked better than having zoro fight mihawk for literally no reason except 'i wanna prove im stronger than mihawk'. Srsly so much of zoro's goddamn honor shit seems so dumb on a rewatch, he outright stabs himself to give himself a handicap cos something sonething honor, and refuses to accept help because honor and fights people who didnt wanna fight him because honor and generally this looks more like signs of the man being suicidal, geez! Also stabbing yourself for no reason is nowhere near as raw as stabbing yourself to save a friend. Also zoro fuckin passed out from blood loss and nami not only didng do that but also completely hid her injury from a literal shark man who can smell blood. And stared him right in the face and lied about murdering her best friend. Nami is the highest goddamn power tier in one piece and if the creator cant figure that out then i have no interest in reading any more of it

WE ARE NAMI STANS FIRST AND HUMANS SECOND