#not that skypeia ever was imo

[theclearblue]

If I ever hear that Skypeia is an irrelevant arc in One Piece ever again after chapter 1138 I will start biting people

[peronasghosts]

I would LOVE to hear the zoro lecture

zoro lecture!! not three hours long bc i value my time & sanity but it is unplanned 👍 like all of the posts here at transdykezoro

actual ramble is under the readmore. bc it got LONG.

ok so zoro is fascinating as a character to me bc he’s got three main factors directing his behavior: his grief and subsequent extreme loneliness, his refusal to ever be the weakest person in any given place, and his pattern of being incredibly devoted. take into consideration i am only just finishing skypeia

his grief and loneliness are fairly easy to spot. it’s the root of his dream, and why he follows luffy in the first place. however!! it also shows up in other places.

the first example that i can think of is when nami went back to arlong park. luffy is certain that she’ll come back with them, that she wants to be with them.

zoro isn’t.

zoro consistently casts doubt on luffy’s confidence, and switches from liking and being friendly with nami to acting like he hates her.

you might be asking how this connects to his grief and loneliness. it does, albeit in a roundabout way.

don’t take this next section as fact, because i’m a teenager and not a psychologist. but judging from how zoro was a kid when kuina died (and he was already an orphan), and a young teenager when he started bounty hunting, he’s definitely traumatized. and his particular trauma is caused by his grief.

grief, especially when the death happens when you’re a kid, changes the way you see the world and how you see other people. based on his past, i’d say that zoro probably made that huge switch with nami partially because of her betrayal (sadness can appear like anger, but he still didn’t trust her as much after as far as i remember) and partially because he has a history of losing people. at least subconsciously, her betrayal made more sense than her coming back.

the next instance in which his grief shows up is when robin first joins the crew. nobody really trusts her (for good reason imo) but zoro is the one who goes on record multiple times (in the manga) in saying that he’s keeping an eye on her and will fight her if she tries to betray them.

but he trusted luffy instantly! so what’s the difference here?

the one that i see is that while robin made her first impression as a mysterious, cunning enemy, luffy’s first impression was him being dumb, annoying, and brave as hell. and also - luffy found zoro at a moment where zoro was unimaginably lonely. he’s not with johnny and yosaku, and seemingly hasn’t been for a while. he’s been traveling around east blue for a while mostly on his own, following the traumatic deaths of three people close to him.

yes, luffy technically blackmailed him, but zoro was kind of in a place where he’d take any chance that still allowed him to follow his dream. luffy understood that, and accommodated that. because he’s luffy

robin came in as an enemy and an ally to someone who mocked and almost killed luffy. and, importantly, she came in when zoro was experiencing something he hadn’t in a while - a stable, committed friend/family group

trauma also makes people hypervigilant. hyperviligance is when you’re basically always in some level of survivor mode. zoro’s in the grand line, a place he can’t survive in without his crew, and his emotional survival depends on his crew’s (mainly luffy’s) survival. robin is a threat to that. of course zoro trusts her the least

going onto the second motivation. it actually stems from the first one in that it’s rooted in his promise to kuina, but that’s normal for zoro.

zoro needs to be the strongest, or on par with the strongest, in any given situation he’s in. this changes a bit with luffy’s protagonist-ness but i think that zoro perceives himself as only a slightly worse fighter than luffy. and he’s fine with that bc it’s luffy.

in my opinion, it’s because zoro thinks that if he can’t win against someone who’s not a swordsman, how versatile is he? and if he loses to a swordsman, then he’s not on track to being the best, and then he’s not keeping his promise to kuina, which is i think his way of keeping her in his life

this factor in his behavior doesn’t stop when he’s not fighting, it’s spread to other parts of his life. i think that’s because zoro’s had a very unstable life so far, and so he controls what he can to make it more stable for him.

a side effect of all of this is that zoro seems incredibly masculine (in the traditional sense that i grew up with. i’m a white usamerican btw). this has inspired admiration and envy of some male fans. but also a not small amount of lesbians love zoro, and relate their experiences to him (like me) (from what i can tell).

i think you can kind of compare zoro to sanji and find out why. sanji’s masculinity, to me, seems incredibly performative. he’s in love with every girl he sees, he’s the one that’ll protect them, he wears a full suit on a tiny ship, but that’s not who he is when no one’s watching imo. sanji’s masculinity seems externally motivated.

zoro’s masculinity is rooted in his promise to a female friend he had when he was young. it’s incidental. his hair is short because it’s economical and easier and he’s muscular because he needs to be strong and likes being strong. it’s an internally motivated behavior, and seems like he’s just being himself. i think that that idea is very relatable to a lot of queer people and aspirational to a lot of cis guys (although maybe i’m giving some of them too much credit)

the third and final driving factor of zoro’s behavior is his loyalty. he’s perpetually loyal to kuina, and has been for about a decade. he changed his life for her when he was a preteen. that’s loyalty.

but now, he’s also intensely loyal to luffy. his loyalty to luffy and his loyalty to kuina sometimes come into conflict, but that hasn’t had a big impact yet, but i am excited for that possibility

[bonni]

idk how this media hyperfixation ask game works, like do you answer to all questions or just the i choose? anyways for one piece: 💢 🏳‍🌈✨🎥💕

💢 what do you NOT like about your hyperfixation? is there something you would want to change about it?

oh fuck, where do i begin? i guess the most obvious is oda’s treatment of women. i don’t think it’s as terrible as people who haven’t read the series thing that it is, but it’s still not great. and actually, the art style isn’t really the part that bothers me, it’s more about misogynistic stereotypes (girls don’t fight, if they do they fight other girls/it’s not melee, girls are the babysitters/serious ones while guys are the fun ones, stuff like that), and the pervert/nosebleed jokes. the first complaint is actually one of the main reasons i love carrot so much, because she shows that oda is able to write female characters who are scrappy and tough and like to have fun, and i hope he continues to do so. i also get really happy when characters like nami and robin are allowed to be kind of dorky and fun, like nami wanting to be a ninja and robin having a ridiculously dark sense of humor. tl;dr, i have hope that oda is getting better when it comes to female characters, but up until now he definitely hasn’t handled them so well.

i also have problems with some of the story arcs, like i think wano has been really boring so far because it feels like the strawhats have been completely sidelined, and i had similar issues back in dressrosa. some arcs definitely have more problems than others, and imo skypeia through marineford is still the most engaging chunk of the series (maybe with thriller bark cut out, because i didn’t like that one too much, lol.)

🏳‍🌈 do you have any headcanons (lgbt, race, neuro, etc) that are important to you?

i’m one of the few fans who doesn’t really like any inner-crew pairings (i don’t mind all of them, but i think it’s really cool that oda wants to keep romance out of the series and i think the crew is just better as a family), so even though i do have lgbt headcanons none of them are really for the sake of shipping. but anyways, lesbian nami is so fucking important. usopp and zoro are also gay, robin and franky are bi, and aside from that i… really don’t care. i also think that most of the strawhats have ptsd, nami has ocd, luffy has adhd, and robin has bpd.

✨ what draws you towards your hyperfixation? what is interesting about it?

i’ve been reading one piece since early middle school and what’s always stood out to me about it is its ability to remain interesting and maintain a sense of direction despite its length. with series like naruto and inuyasha, it began to feel like a chore to keep reading, because the authors were so clearly just stretching out the story. one piece is long as shit, but it’s incredibly purposeful; oda is so thoughtful and it’s really evident that he’s been planning this story long-term. i’ve also always loved character driven stories, and “a group of traumatized misfits find family in each other” is like my favorite trope ever, so i love the straw hats. plus i love the fantastical settings like skypeia and whole cake island.

🎥 do you have any favorite scenes from your hyperfixation?

off the top of my head... luffy ringing the golden bell after defeating enel, usopp shooting down the world govt flag, hiriluk’s cherry blossoms, corazon telling law he loves him..... oh, the iconic vivi sendoff with The Pose (TM), and uhh... carrot drawing the strawhats as a shoujo, lmao. also i don’t watch the anime anymore but my favorite animated scene is luffy punching charlos, it’s even done by one of my favorite animators.

💕 tell us about one of your favorite characters and why you like them!

CARROT!! i fucking love carrot so much and i want her to become a straw hat so badly...... i liked her right away because uh. she’s cute. but then she quickly became my favorite character because she’s so different from all the other female characters in the series. like i said before, i love that carrot is super strong, i love that she’s a melee fighter, i love that she’s adventurous and irresponsible and a little dumb. she actually reminds me a lot of luffy, who is also one of my favorite characters. plus she gets a totally metal super saiyan form and i really hope we get to see her fight more!