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fivedayslater · 2 years ago

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Part Seven: Next to Law

Dinner and a Murder: A Mr. Prince Mystery Master Post

Sanji sits down in the empty seat next to Law.

Law’s eyes go wide as he does, but a soft smile graces his lips as Sanji settles down.

Luffy takes a seat on his other side at the head of the table, and Zoro sits across from him as the others finally make their way over to the table.

Ace hooks his cane on the back of the empty chair next to Law before he sits down, and Usopp slides into the seat across from him, leaving Nami to sit between him and Zoro, across from Law.

Once they’re all seated, Iva and the rest of the staff bring out the food, setting Luffy, Sanji, and Usopp’s plates down first.

Luffy is bouncing in his seat, already reaching out for the food as it's placed in front of him, even as Iva smacks his hands away. His wide, pleading eyes dart between Sanji and Iva, before finally landing on Ace.

“Wait until everyone has some,” Ace laughs and raises his brow, “It’s more polite, and I’m sure Sanji will appreciate it.”

Sanji blinks, surprised he’s somehow a factor in Luffy’s behavior, but Luffy turns his determined gaze to him and nods, his hands instead gripping the edge of the table tight to restrain himself.

“You can even get Luffy to behave,” Law says, a hint of a smile on his face, “You must be the real deal.”

“A detective and a Luffy moderator all in one,” Zoro jokes, but his smile is bright and his face is soft as he looks at him, “You’re really the whole package.”

Sanji blushes at the compliments, but his smile is pleased as the staff brings out the rest of the plates.

Once everyone is served, Iva declares, “This is one of the greatest meals I’ve ever made, if I do say so myself.” They take a short bow, “Bon appetit.”

Luffy wastes no time in snatching up his utensils and digging right in. The display is unruly, but just like with the chili, Sanji appreciates his enthusiasm.

He eats his food at a more moderate pace, and is hit with the delicious flavors of the dish. He makes sure to extend his compliments to Iva.

“Thank you, Mr. Black,” Iva says with a bow, “I knew you had good taste.”

Everyone else heaps compliments in their direction, and they take a dramatic bow as they head back into the kitchen.

The rest of the meal is spent in pleasant conversation. It’s obvious that everyone here are very good friends, joking and laughing with each other as they eat, the mood in the room light and pleasant. And Zoro, Law, and Luffy make sure he’s included in the conversation too, despite being the new guy in this group, going out of their way to ask his opinion or explain parts of a story he wasn’t there for, which he appreciates.

“So then,” Nami has to take a moment to get her laughter under control as she gestures between Usopp and Zoro, “Then, once the cop that handcuffed them is turned, Zoro turned to Usopp and said-”

“You don’t have to tell him that part.” Zoro’s face blushes a brilliant red, making him look all the more striking in his embarrassment, and Sanji knows he won’t rest until he hears the rest of this story.

“No no,” Usopp laughs, “You gotta own your brilliant ideas. That’s what you tell me all the time.”

“He said,” Nami clears her throat, dropping her voice as she does her best Zoro impression, “We should play rock-paper-scissors.”

“So I’m sitting there,” Usopp adds, his grin mischievous, “handcuffed to one of my best friends, scared out of my mind that I’m going to jail for the rest of my life, and this is Zoro’s suggestion for how to get out of it.” He laughs and shakes his head, “Naturally, I calmly ask him what the hell he’s talking about.”

“More like shrieked it,” Zoro smirks in a way that has Sanji’s stomach flipping, “And you weren’t calm at all, flailing about the place like a fish out of water.”

“Minor details,” Usopp waves his correction away, as he turns to Sanji, “And do you want to know what he said next?”

“He does not,” Zoro says at the same time Sanji says, “What did he say next?”

“Loser gets their hand chopped off,” Nami says in her best Zoro voice, “And we make a run for it.”

The whole table bursts into laughter – even Zoro can’t fight the little snickers at his past self’s behavior.

“Oh man,” Luffy says, his smile bright and sunny in a way that makes it hard for Sanji to look away, “You’re too funny, Zoro.”

“Like the cops wouldn’t have followed the obvious blood trail to the hospital,” Ace laughs too.

“Technically speaking,” Law chimes in with a handsome smirk of his own, his eyes meeting Sanji’s,]“You can reattach a severed hand, if you found a surgeon in time.”

Sanji smiles mischievously back at him, as if they’re in on the same secret, and says, “And how long would it be before they ran out of time, Doctor?”

“About a day,” Law rests his head in his hand as he gazes softly at him, “if they were lucky.”

“I have ample luck,” Zoro smirks in that confident way that makes Sanji’s heart stutter, “See? You would have been fine.”

“Fantastic, good to know,” Usopp points his fork at him, “Next time I’ll let you cut off your hand. I’m sure Law will be thrilled to sow it back on.”

The table roars with laughter once more, the mirth and delight echoing around the room.

Once everyone has finished with their food, and Iva and the staff clear the plates away, Ace lets out a heavy sigh, grabbing his cane as he stands up.

“What do you say?” He grins as he nods to the door, “After dinner drinks in the ballroom?”

Everyone enthusiastically agrees, so they all make their way into the hallway.

There’s a loud rumble of thunder overhead, the lights flickering a little in its aftermath, reminding everyone of the storm still raging outside.

“Storm’s still going strong, huh?” Law says, his eyes darting to a nearby window.

“Looks like it,” Sanji nods, his mood falling at the thought of driving home in this.

“Guess you all will have to stay the night,” Ace says with a polite smile, “If that’s alright with you.”

“It’s preferable, yes,” Nami agrees easily, and everyone else voices their agreements as well.

“Awesome! It’s a slumber party!” Luffy grins, “I’ll go tell Bon-Chan to get the rooms ready for you guys.”

With one last delightful laugh, he scampers off towards the kitchen, but Sanji’s heart feels a soft pang as he watches him go.

“Bet you five hundred bucks he’s just looking for more to eat,” Nami snickers.

“That’s a sucker's bet,” Ace laughs as he leads them towards the ballroom.

“Actually,” Law glances away once they reach the ballroom door, “There was something I’ve been meaning to look at in the study, since I’m here.”

“If you’re done socializing for the night you can just say so,” Usopp laughs, making Law growl, “We’re all used to it by now.”

Law’s eyes quickly dart to Sanji before looking away again, a faint pink spreading across his cheeks, “I’d like to continue talking with you guys, but…”

“It’s fine,” Sanji is quick to assure him, giving him a soft smile as he gestures at the storm still raging outside, “It’s not like we’re going anywhere anytime soon.”

“Right,” Law gives him one last smile and a nod as he wanders off, “I’ll see you later.”

Sanji watches him go, a little disappointed at this turn of events.

“Anyway,” Ace waves them into the ballroom and heads for the drink cart, “What can I get you all to drink?”

They tell him, but Sanji’s surprised not to hear a request from Zoro. A quick glance around reveals that he’s not even in the room.

“Where’s Zoro?”

The others glance around, and let out a collective groan.

“How could he have gotten lost between the dining room and the ballroom,” Nami sighs, “He’s hopeless.”

“It is a big house,” Sanji points out as Ace hands him his drink.

“He’d get lost even if it was a one room apartment,” Usopp sighs as he accepts his own drink from Ace, “His sense of direction is one of the great mysteries of this world.”

Sanji sighs as he glances back at the door, already missing Zoro.

“Don’t fret,” Nami tells him as Ace hands her her drink, giving him a knowing look, “I’m sure he’ll turn up eventually.”

“So, Sanji,” Ace grins as he hands Nami her drinks and turns to face him, “Are you enjoying yourself so far? I know we’re not always the easiest people to get along with.”

“Everyone’s been wonderful,” Sanji says with a smile, “It’s been great getting to know you all. I’m just sorry if, as an outsider, I’m intruding on your group time.”

“Not at all,” Nami assures him with a grin, “Luffy’s got a good eye for people, and you fit right in with us.” She laughs, “As long as you’re not about to expose all our secrets, Mr. Prince.”

“I’m not in the business of exposing secrets,” He says, then laughs too, “Not unless I have to.”

“It’s a good thing we’re all secret free,” Usopp says with a grin, “I’ve never had a secret in my life.”

“That’s right,” Ace says with a laugh as he swirls his drink, “My life is an open book.”

“I definitely have secrets,” Nami says as she sticks out her tongue, “But you’ll never find them.”

They all share a laugh, and the mood in the room relaxes.

Just then, someone’s cell phone rings, its jarring ringtone echoing around the large room.

#one piece #opfanfic #fanfic #sanji #op sanji #sanji one piece #zosan #lawsan #lusan #choose your own adventure fic #polls #fanfic poll

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trixree · 2 years ago

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WIP Wednesday

Things have somewhat eased for me in my personal life as of late, so I'm returning to my WIPs with the high hopes of perhaps finishing some of them. Will be posting snippets on Wednesdays and Sundays to motivate myself! This first snippet comes from an ongoing commission for the very patient, very wonderful @doubledead

PROMPT: Dreamsharing AU, Zoro/Luffy/Sanji

The problem about thinking nothing at all is that Sanji is not good at it.

He’s so, so painfully bad at it.

Zeff used to scruff him like a kitten and shake him by his neck in the hopes that all those extra brain cells would rattle loose and give you some peace, kid. He’s never slept well because of his racing thoughts. He’s always been cripplingly anxious. It was much worse during puberty—so much worse. He’d have these screaming night-terrors and wake up the whole restaurant with his shouting. He slept with Zeff until well after the age where any child should have been able to sleep alone.

Zeff kept a basin of seawater by his bed for dunking him; a much safer alternative to tossing Sanji straight into the ocean and a much cheaper alternative than midnight panic-showers, which go a long way into eating up fresh-water rations.

Being in the water has always calmed him. (He very quickly matured out of the fantasy of finding a Devil Fruit, no matter the ability. He could never give up his ability to swim, invisibility be damned.)

It wasn’t always strictly nightmares, either. Sometimes, the Dreams were enough to send him down a spiral. What if I’m not good enough? What if they see I’m a failure? What if I hold them back? What if they hate me? What if—

Tonight, the tried and true method of filling a pail to the brim with ocean water and dunking his face in it repeatedly has failed. It is devastating, seeing as Sanji is going on well over four days with only episodic naps to sustain him. This is about where his natural limit lies, more or less. After the four-day mark without a solid six hours, he starts unraveling like an old sock.

He stands, dripping and exhausted on the deck, looking out at the dark sea and trying to remember who’s on watch duty tonight and if Usopp will ask him questions he doesn’t want to answer. It’ll be the third night in a row that Sanji has relieved someone from their turn on watch—Nami first, Usopp twice after.

It just makes sense to take the watch when he’s going to be awake anyways. It beats tossing and turning in the bunkroom all night, worrying with every noise he makes, he’ll wake the others; worrying that if he manages to fall asleep at all, he’ll wake the others with his screaming.

With an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips, Sanji climbs up into the crows nest and comes face-to-face with a sleepy-looking Luffy wrapped up in a knit blanket like someone’s grandmother.

“Hey,” Sanji mumbles around his cigarette.

Luffy smiles at him, beaming like the fucking sun, and reaches out a hand to help him into the nest. Sanji’s too tired not to take it.

They settle on opposite ends of the little bowl-shaped look out, Sanji’s legs bent and feet flat, Luffy sitting crisscross so that they fit. The lantern flickers warmly between them.

“I can take watch,” Sanji offers as he lights his cigarette. “I’ll be up anyways.”

Luffy tilts his head slightly, like an owl. “Why?”

“Can’t sleep.”

Luffy makes a little sound of understanding. “I’ll keep you company, then,” he announces. “Why’s your hair wet?”

Sanji shrugs. “Thought the water would help clear my head.”

“Did it?”

He snorts. “Not really.” Now he’s just briney and cold.

Luffy makes a racket and a half shuffling around the crows nest until they’re pressed shoulder to shoulder with Luffy’s blanket thrown across both their laps. “What’re you—” Sanji starts to ask when Luffy presses the whole hot line of his body against Sanji’s side.

“You’re cold, right? This way we’ll both be warm,” Luffy explains like it’s that easy, like Sanji’s being silly for even asking. Everything is so easy with Luffy—so uncomplicated. Nami is gone? They’ll just go get her back. Her hometown held hostage? He’ll just defeat Aarlong, easy-peasy. One Piece? Time to sail to the Grand Line with a crew of five, including oneself. No, it’ll surely be fine.

“You don’t have to,” Sanji tries. He is exercising every one of his extra brain cells to the point of collapse in attempting to ignore his earlier conversation with Nami.

She had thought he was crushing on a guy—a guy he hates, nonetheless—and here he is, pressed close to his Captain and sharing a blanket under the night sky. If that’s not crushing territory—well. The frantic galloping of his heart isn’t doing him any fucking favors.

“I know,” Luffy says, easy. Easy, easy, easy. After a minute more of racing thoughts and puffing at his cigarette, Luffy surprises him by announcing, out of nowhere, “You remind me of my brother.”

Sanji has no good associations with brothers. The declaration surprises him so much that he inhales wrong and starts coughing up a lung. Luffy smacks him rhythmically on the back until the hacking clears. As soon as it stops, Sanji is taking a truly desperate drag.

“You have a brother?” He asks once the tobacco has calmed his trainwreck of a brain enough to speak and not blurt out something stupid like were your brothers also abusive pieces of shit that made a competition out of who could leave the biggest bruises on you? or I’m sorry.

Luffy picks at a loose thread on the blanket. It’s something the both of them have in common—they’re always moving. Luffy is a terrible fidget. Zeff woulda’ bruised Luffy’s knuckles with the kitchen spoon a dozen times over, if Luffy had actually been good for bussing tables. Sanji thinks, deliriously, about Luffy picking up smoking and has to physically shake away the thought.

Hives. Hives everywhere. Hives on his brain.

“Two,” Luffy tells him, smiling quietly. “One died. You remind me of him.”

Oh.

“Shit,” Sanji says. “I’m sorry.” Congratulations don’t seem to be in order when Luffy looks a hundred years older than he actually is.

Luffy knocks their shoulders together gently. “Nah, don’t be. It’s good, to remember him. He had a hard time sleeping, too. I’d sit up with him like this sometimes, so he didn’t have to be alone.” And then, Luffy looks dead in Sanji’s eyes and says with far more tenderness than Sanji has ever deserved from anyone for any reason, “No one should have to be alone.”

It is suddenly very difficult to swallow. The hives are in his throat, now. The crew needs a fucking medic. Sanji doesn’t know what to say.

#WIP wednesday #trixree writes #lusan #endgame monster-trio #pre-alabasta #my writing #reblogs welcome and encourgaed! pls do not repost

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kenbunshokus · 3 years ago

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eggnemies to lovers

nami/vivi, zoro/sanji | 7k words (best viewed on: ao3)

My (20F) Date (21M) keeps getting into fights with a cook at Baratie. submitted 6 months ago by u/throwawaypinwheel

(Or, the one where Sanji is a diner cook, Vivi is their waitress, and Zoro and Nami accidentally became each other’s wingman.)

Zoro glares at his plate as if his omelette has just challenged him to a duel. Nami tries her best to focus on the map she’s working on—this one’s a particularly difficult homework from her Intro to Coastal Navigation class—and pointedly does not look up.

“Holy shit,” Zoro mutters under his breath, poking at the offending egg, “Nami, I swear—”

“We are not having this conversation again—”

“I told you,” Zoro plows on, “that fucking cook is doing this on purpose.”

Nami takes a deep breath. Cartography is a delicate art, and Nami aims to be a professional. She takes her favorite pencil and elegantly traces over the coastline of Cocoyashi Village, poised and collected and calm. She’s not going to take the bait and ruin her map, no matter how much Zoro is sulking over an egg—

She sighs. “Zoro, I’m pretty sure there’s just been some mix-up with the orders.”

Zoro huffs at that, clearly disbelieving. “For the third time this week?”

“This isn’t exactly a five-star establishment,” she points out, and adds, reasonably, calmly, in an attempt to find some semblance of peace, “I doubt the cook of some no-name diner even knows your name.”

The words seem to have brought about the opposite effect, because now there’s a dangerous glint in Zoro’s eyes as he mutters, “well, he’s about to find out,” before standing up and shamelessly yelling, “ OI! COOK! ”

Nami drives the pencil through her map.

r/relationship_advice

My (20F) Date (21M) keeps getting into fights with a cook at Baratie. submitted 6 months ago by u/throwawaypinwheel

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My (20F) Date (21M) keeps getting into fights with a cook at Baratie.

submitted 6 months ago by /u/throwawaypinwheel

I know this sounds really weird, but here it is:

This guy and I have been on a couple of dates. We’d been friends long before we started trying this going out thing, so he isn’t a total stranger to me, and I’ve long known him as a pretty calm guy. Chimes in once a week in the group chat, grunts a lot during conversations, you know — one of those quiet, meditating types. He’s only competitive when it comes to his favorite sport (he’s a professional kendo athlete), but other than that he tends not to care about what other people think about him. I’ve never seen him respond to anyone’s taunts or getting worked up by a stranger’s words.

Except at Baratie.

Any time we’re out he wants to go to this diner called Baratie down in Grand Line. I don’t really care about the food, but the tables there are big enough for me to do work (Maritime Science major here—lots of stationeries and large maps to work with). But that became impossible once he and this one cook started chirping at each other every time we went there. Date complained about his eggs one time, because he likes them a little runny and they were served hard. The cook responded by giving him scrambled eggs. When he brought it up again, the cook served him two hardboiled eggs. It was kind of funny to be honest, but my date wasn’t able to laugh it off. When we left, he was in a bad mood.

This is the crazy part: he keeps going back.

In fact, he keeps going back and ordering eggs and getting into fistfights with the same cook. It’s almost a ritual at this point. He orders runny eggs, the cook serves him some other version of eggs, and then they beat the shit out of each other. We never eat out at any other places now; it’s just Baratie every fucking week. Sometimes he even goes there without me.

I’ve tried to talk to him about it a few times, but he keeps saying it’s a matter of principle. I’ve told him to just talk to the manager, but he just waved me off. Apparently that cook hasn’t yet made him the correct runny eggs, but it’s like he spends the week learning new ways of preparing eggs to piss my date off.

My question is — this is weird, right? Like, I’m not really concerned about the fighting part — he’s never been physical with me and I never once felt threatened by him — but what’s with the obsession ? They’re just eggs, aren’t they?

Is this indicative of something deeper? Should I reconsider going exclusive with this guy?

When Nami looks up from her map this time, Zoro has already stalked off to the kitchen. This isn’t new or remarkable in any way, except the fact that he almost ran into one of the waitresses, who immediately clutched her tray against her chest and watched his retreating back warily.

Zoro didn’t even spare her a glance. What a brute. Nami’s going to add to his debt later for that.

“Hey,” Nami calls out towards the waitress, waving at her to come by her table, “I’m sorry, uh…”

“Vivi,” the waitress fills in with a polite smile.

“Right, Vivi—I’m Nami,” Nami replies, finding herself nervous all of a sudden, because up close like this, holy fuck is the waitress so pretty, with long blue hair and silver-sharp eyes. Nami clears her throat. “Uh, I just want to say sorry about his—his whole deal with your Cook. Zoro—that’s his name—he’s usually really chill, so I don’t know what’s happening here.”

Vivi thankfully chuckles at that, seemingly finding the situation more hilarious than threatening. Good. There’s also something about that laughter that makes Nami feel like she’s fourteen again, full of butterflies and all too small for everything, but she tries not to think too hard about that yet.

“In your friend’s defense,” Vivi says, “Sanji is usually really good with memorizing orders, so he’s totally messing with your friend on purpose.”

As if on cue, the cook’s voice—Sanji’s—rings out from the kitchen. “YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE, MOSSHEAD, I TOLD YOU THE KITCHEN’S OFF LIMITS FOR CUSTOMERS —”

Nami finds herself laughing with Vivi. “You know, it’s actually impressive that Zoro doesn’t get lost on his way to the kitchen anymore.”

Vivi raises her eyebrow. “Nami, the kitchen door is right there.”

“It’s Zoro,” Nami presses, because it’s always fun to see strangers learn about Zoro’s disastrous relationship with directions and maps for the first time. “One time, during our junior high sports festival, he got lost on the running track. For a hundred-meter race .”

That earns her another laugh from Vivi as she takes a seat beside Nami, body leaning forward in curiosity, “really? Is he short-sighted or something? Can’t he just—I don’t know, literally see the finish line?”

“Here’s the thing you need to know about Zoro,” Nami begins, and watching the way Vivi’s soft hair falls over the slope of her shoulder, bright blue and blinding despite the dim lighting of the diner, Nami somehow can’t find it in herself to be mad at Zoro anymore.

u/salveshine • 492 points 6 months ago

This seems like an obvious question, but I have to ask: have you considered going somewhere else for your dates? Most people don’t go to a diner for dates in the first place.

/u/throwawaypinwheel • 23 points 6 months ago

Well, as I said on the original post, it’s downright an obsession at this point. Asking him to go somewhere else doesn’t solve the problem since he’d just go there on his own on a different day.

Also, the waitress there is nice. She’s been keeping me company throughout this whole thing. She’s a godsend.

Vivi appears by her table as soon as Zoro disappears into the kitchen.

“Again?” Vivi asks by way of greeting.

“Again,” Nami agrees, scooting to the side of her bench to give Vivi space to sit. “It’s eggs benedict this time. Perfectly poached. I went to this fancy restaurant a few weeks ago, and they didn’t even make it this good.”

Somewhere from what presumably is the kitchen, Zoro’s frustrated voice echoes throughout the whole diner. “Now you’re not even serving me eggs anymore!”

“What are you—“ there is a moment of stunned silence before Sanji‘s reply comes, equally loud, dripped with utter disbelief. “Are you fucking serious? You thought this wasn’t made of—you’ve never seen scotch eggs before?”

“SHUT UP,” Zoro yells back.

Nami cranes her neck out of instinct, wishing to catch a glimpse of the scene from the window behind the counter—she’s never heard Zoro sounding so flustered before—but Vivi’s voice, small and low and far from the confident tone Nami has started to get used to, pulls her attention back.

“I’m sorry.”

It takes another moment before the words fully register in her brain. “Wh—for what?”

“I mean,” Vivi says, twiddling with her fingers as she mumbles, “this is supposed to be your date.”

“My date?” The question already falls out of her mouth before she realizes, oh. Oh. This is supposed to be a date, because her and Zoro are…well. Sometimes she doesn’t even remember that part—they’re certainly not acting the part, considering they’re hanging out with other people during these ‘dates’. Nami understands, rationally, that she should be mad about this; and yet— “It’s fine. I’m not that bothered.”

Vivi blinks. “You’re not?”

“Nah,” Nami says, waving her hand dismissively, feeling as surprised as Vivi looks. “Well, when it comes down to it, it’s still free food, you know? Could’ve been better—no offense, but a family diner isn’t exactly date material—but considering the menu and ingredients you guys have to work with? Sanji’s practically been making feasts fit for royalty here.”

“Well, I still think you deserve to be treated better during a date,” Vivi crosses her arms and—is that a pout on her face? “Don’t you feel a bit lonely?”

“No?” Nami replies, taken aback. That’s literally the furthest thing on her mind, because— “I have you, don’t I?”

Nami feels her face heat up as soon as the words left her mouth, because that sounded way more presumptuous than she intended. She meant to say, I have you to keep me company , like a friend , in a totally friend platonic way. Except they were talking about dates in a decidedly very romantic way and she should totally take it back—

Vivi beams at that, the kind that makes her look like she’s glowing inside her skin, and never mind, Nami’s not taking it back. Nope. She’s never taking it back even if someone’s paying her a million berries to take it back.

Vivi takes Nami’s hand from the table and holds it in both of her own, and Nami’s heart trips in her chest.

“Yeah,” Vivi says, the words sending a low hum under Nami’s ribcage. “Yeah, you have me.”

/u/mettlemental • 301 points 5 months ago

This is their ritual. Do not interfere.

/u/throwawaypinwheel • 279 points 5 months ago

You know what, I think you have a point. This thing between me and the waitress is also a ritual now, so we’re even.

“Shishishi!” Luffy laughs, eyes practically sparkling. “Sanji is so cool!”

“No he’s not!” Zoro pinches Luffy by the cheek to try to drag him away from Sanji. “I brought you here to defend me!”

“But Sanji’s the one making me delicious meat right now,” Luffy pouts, seemingly unperturbed by the potential disfigurement of his own face, gaze still rooted on Sanji—or, more specifically, the food Sanji is carrying on a tray. “What can you make, Zoro?”

Sanji lights up his cigarette, expression hidden behind his hands, but his whole body visibly puffs up like a peacock. Nami notices how the tips of his ears have turned red. “Finally, someone with taste.”

Zoro tries to grab the tray away from Sanji’s hand, and Nami watches Vivi masterfully maneuver between the messy cacophony of the trio, placing a tall stack of waffles in front of Chopper.

“This doesn’t make me happy at all!” Chopper says, his words nowhere near convincing, considering he’s saying it with the largest grin Nami has ever seen on a fourteen-year-old. “Did Sanji make this one, too?”

“He did,” Vivi says as she takes a seat beside Nami, as she always does. The table settles into a comfortable silence as Chopper digs into his waffles and Vivi absentmindedly plays with the salt shaker, observing the idiot trio from a distance.

“They sure get along fast,” Nami says as she takes out her cartography tools, and Vivi’s gaze sweeps between Luffy, Chopper, and the maps on the table.

“You’re not even trying to have a date anymore, aren’t you,” she points out.

“Nope,” Nami agrees, gesturing to Chopper with her pencil. “Chopper here wanted to try the waffle for a long time ever since I told him all about Sanji.”

“Please tell Sanji I love it!” Chopper adds around a mouthful of sugar.

“And Luffy’s been really curious about you two anyways.”

One table away, Luffy took the last bite of whatever meal Sanji just served, and dramatically announces, “this one’s better than the last one!”

“You always say that after every plate,” Sanji mumbles, but shoves another plate towards the kid anyways, clearly preening from the praises.

“It wasn’t even that good,” Zoro adds desperately, and scowls when Sanji chooses to watch Luffy eat another serving with the same gusto like he did the first one. “Oi—don’t ignore me, Shit Cook!”

It’s...fascinating. Nami never had a habit of watching Zoro—those activities are reserved for those fangirls in their university who barely know him—but she finds herself unable to look away whenever they’re at the Baratie. Whenever he’s with Sanji, to be precise. The chef seems to have brought out so many different sides of Zoro she’s never seen before in all the years she’s known him, and that’s saying a lot, considering she’s known Zoro for a decade.

Zoro has always been a steady presence in her and Luffy’s life ever since he moved into their neighborhood when she was shy of turning ten; he is strong-willed and loyal and eternally dependable, like a safe place they can always come back to. He can be a little hard to read, quiet and reserved as he is, but these days Nami knows where to look, the telltales hidden in the way he straightens his back and carries himself.

But with Sanji, Zoro is—he’s all those things still, sure. But he’s also— so much more. There’s suddenly this— kid, lively and boyish and so, so easy to read. Open book, heart on his sleeve. He grins and yells and throws his punches, and Sanji would take them in stride and return them as easily. This Zoro pouts when Sanji doesn’t pay him attention, and scowls when he does; and when Sanji makes him laugh, it’s a loud, open thing.

Sometimes it feels as if the Zoro she knew was an impostor all along. As if there was a pale imitation of Roronoa Zoro with a ghost of a smile, and he’d only come alive in the middle of a fucking diner.

And the worst part of it all is—

“You two?” Vivi suddenly mumbles, seemingly to herself.

Nami tilts her head. “Yeah?”

“You were saying something about Luffy being curious about… us two ,” Vivi says. There’s an odd, pensive look on her face. “Are you talking about Sanji and…”

“You, of course!” Nami cuts in, perplexed.

“You told your friends about me?” Vivi wonders, and it’s baffling. Of course Nami told her friends about Vivi. Sometimes Nami thinks Vivi is all she could talk about. She’s hilarious and smart and a thousand times more interesting to talk about than Sanji and Zoro combined.

That’s a really weird thing to suddenly spring on someone though, so Nami instead says, “Vivi, you’re the best thing about these weekly visits, because that sure as hell isn’t.”

She’s pointing at the dumbass trio; somewhere along the way, Luffy has seemed to fall asleep, and Sanji is smiling at the boy’s sleeping form, looking very pleased with himself. Zoro is fuming behind him, arms crossed and chest puffed, like a child being forced to share his favorite toy.

Vivi laughs at the sight, shaking her head. “Well, boys will be boys.”

The words bury itself uncomfortably in the pit of Nami’s stomach.

Boys will be boys—which is why sometimes (oftentimes, many times, always) Nami thinks she’s much more easily enamored with girls. Nami supposes there is a certain charm in Zoro’s brutish ways, but she’s beginning to learn that it may not be for her—Nami appreciates people who can hold their own in a fistfight, but there is also strength in reigning yourself in despite the circumstances, the way she’s seen Vivi handle difficult customers with a firm tone, graceful and dangerous at the same time.

(What could this mean, then? For her, for them—)

Zoro and Sanji have started fighting animatedly again. Roronoa Zoro, his heart on his sleeve.

And the worst part is that Nami doesn’t even care.

/u/sorcatarius • 334 points 4 months ago

I usually appreciate it when OP updates their posts with recent developments because I’m one of those people who get easily invested in a stranger’s life story, but is it just me or do all of these updates seem irrelevant? Most of them are about the waitress. I feel like I’m learning nothing about the actual date here. Who’s dating who again?

/u/NeonRain15• 137 points 4 months ago

OP is clearly a troll lol.

They are sitting at a corner table in front of the door to the kitchen, because Franky and Robin aren’t even pretending they’re here for the food instead of a show. Usopp told them he would rather ‘see where the danger is coming from ’, but Nami suspects the real reason is something closer to morbid curiosity.

Nami doesn’t fault them. It certainly is hard to look away from what those two clowns are currently doing: Zoro is waving a spatula and a frying pan like he would his kendo swords, clearly breaking several kitchen-related OSHA rules in the process; Sanji puts out his cigarette against the counter—seriously, has nobody here heard of proper kitchen etiquette—and swings his leg in a drop kick.

There’s a loud CLANK as his shoe comes into contact with the pan.

Franky whistles. “That’s super awesome, bro!” He cheers, before turning back to the table with a lower voice, “Seriously, how have they not fired Sanji-bro already?”

“Other than the fact that he’s overqualified as hell?” Usopp asks in between spoonfuls of Sanji’s fried rice.

“Well, they do provide a wonderful source of entertainment for us customers,” Robin observes.

“Sure thing,” Franky replies, “but they’re totally destroying kitchen appliances right now, I mean, look at that roller. There’s no way any normal wood could withstand that —there it goes.”

“Let them be—what’s the worst that could happen?” Robin muses. “Other than a kitchen accident that leads to a gas explosion and the restaurant burning down to the ground, obliterating all of us in the process, of course.”

“Robin,” Usopp squeaks.

Inside the kitchen, the tables have turned—Sanji has somehow regained possession of his kitchen appliances, and he’s now teaching Zoro how to cook. They’re standing shoulder-to-shoulder, heads bent over the stove, and Sanji would occasionally wrap his hand around Zoro’s wrist to instruct him.

Zoro looks like he’s going to spontaneously combust. His eyes are darting between Sanji’s hands (still lightly gripping Zoro’s wrist), Sanji’s face (dangerously close to Zoro’s own), and Sanji’s lips (there’s something there, something he wants to do and Nami knows if she thinks hard enough she can put a name on it) —anywhere but the food they’re actually cooking. Zoro’s own face is now redder than the tomatoes lining up the kitchen counter.

Heart on his sleeve, Nami thinks. Open book, open book.

“I’m going to get some refills,” she announces, suddenly feeling like she’s intruding on something private and practically leaps towards the soda station. She could feel a pair of curious eyes on her back—Robin’s, no doubt—but she’s more distracted by another presence currently standing beside her.

“Hey,” Vivi says, voice light, teasing. She’s carrying a lot of cups on her, presumably the others’, and she bumps her shoulder against Nami’s playfully. Nami could feel the touch fizzle against her skin.

“Hey,” Nami replies, trying to pretend that the close proximity doesn’t bother her at all. “‘Sup?”

Vivi wordlessly helps her with the drinks, and they easily fall into comfortable silence, filling cups after cups, until Vivi nudges her again. “You know, Usopp was right about Sanji being overqualified.”

Nami fills Franky’s cup slower, wondering where the conversation is going. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. You know, I have a secret,” Vivi says, tone playful, but when Nami looks up there’s something in her eyes. “Actually, I own this place.”

Nami stops filling the cup. “What?”

“I mean, it’s mostly on loan, and I’m not halfway done with the payments, but technically, yeah,” Vivi says, tucking her hair to the back of her ear in a nervous gesture. “I didn’t really want to tell anyone because it’s not like I wanted a special treatment from the patrons. And I am effectively a waitress here.”

Nami is suddenly reminded of all the instances when she called Baratie a no-name diner right to Vivi’s face, and feels her stomach sink. Holy shit, she called it a dumpster fire just last week.

Vivi must have noticed Nami’s mental breakdown, because she quickly waves her hand and laughs. “No, no, don’t worry about it—I know we’re still a work in progress. Especially ever since—”

Vivi trails off at that, suddenly looking unsure. She starts collecting all the cups, like she’s giving Nami a reason to back out of the conversation. “It’s kind of a boring life story, actually, I’m sorry for dumping that all to you out of the blue—”

“Vivi,” Nami says, placing a calming hand on her shoulder. She doesn’t usually do this; she knows, better than most, how heavy one’s past could be, and she hates it when people try to pry into hers. But Vivi is looking at her with sad eyes and unsteady hands, and suddenly Nami wants nothing other than to tell her, “I’ll drop this if you don’t want to talk about it, but remember this: I will always want to know more about you.”

She places her hand on Vivi's arm, for emphasis. “I will always want to support you.”

It takes a moment before her words sink in, and Nami could see the moment it does, Vivi’s eyes widening in surprise as her face breaks into a slow-starting smile. “Thank you, Nami,” she whispers, and it’s almost reverent.

Nami’s gaze falls onto Vivi’s lips, and suddenly it’s become very difficult to maintain a conversation.

She wonders how she’d look now, to an outsider. Flushed face and a stupid smile on her face, hands fidgeting with her own hair. Open book, open book . Could they hear, she wonders, the way her heart is hammering against her ribcage—would they find out—

Robin claps her hands together, snapping Nami out of her reverie. The whole group is already standing by the door, waiting for her, and god, how long have they been talking by the soda station again?

“Perhaps we can take the drinks another day. Time to go home, don’t you think?” Robin suggests. Her tone is light, but her gaze is heavy, and Nami has to resist the urge to curl into herself.

Zoro still stares at the kitchen, oblivious to the tension. “Yeah,” he says, almost in a daze. “ Shit — yeah.”

Shit, indeed.

/u/Lanzifer• 975 points 5 months ago

This is a love story.

/u/nashdezus • 307 points 3 months ago

I hate to break it to you but I think your boyfriend is in love with the cook. If this is fake you have written one of the greatest gay romances of this generation, if this isn’t fake I dunno what.

/u/ParkNight • 399 points 3 months ago

Your BF needs to cut to the chase and invite the cook over to your place for some eggs and rough sex.

/u/Cod3Man • 760 points 4 months ago

He has a crush on the cook & vice versa but they’re both living a lie so they fight because it’s the only way to release the sexual tension. Every different way of cooking an egg represents a different sex act.

/u/jakubada • 523 points 3 months ago

Girl, not to wish ill will on your relationship, but you should bang that waitress instead.

“Have you ever heard of Baroque Works?”

Nami pauses. She places her pencil away, knowing that Vivi deserves nothing less than her full attention.

It’s only been a couple of days since the conversation she had with Vivi, but Nami can’t get her mind off of it. She’s been coming to Baratie every single day now after college, and it’s just so convenient that Zoro suddenly refuses to go. It’s simply harder to have Vivi open up when someone else is around, and not because there are other reasons. Like wanting Vivi all to herself. No sire.

She shakes herself out of the dangerous train of thoughts. “Baroque Works? Isn’t that the new restaurant chain down the block? It’s the one that’s taken over that other chain, right? Uh, what was it called—”

“Alabasta,” Vivi supplies, before sighing. “That’s the chain my family used to own.”

Nami blinks. “Wait, you used to own Alabasta?”

Running a diner on her own at her age is already an impressive feat in and of itself, but Alabasta is a whole different beast. It’s a nation-wide chain with dozens of restaurants, and owning the chain is probably equivalent to owning a small empire.

“Oh, no, I mean, my family did,” Vivi quickly adds, ever humble. “It’s not exactly anything impressive. My grandfather ran the business before my father did, and his father was the one who started it—it was passed down the generations, and I was simply born into it.

“As you said, Alabasta went down a few years ago because my father struck a bad deal with a ruthless businessman. It is clear now, in hindsight, that Crocodile was tricking us, but we were naive and perhaps a little too eager to expand. Baroque Works took over, and we were left with the only branch they deemed the least profitable—here.”

“And you renamed it to Baratie?”

“That was Sanji’s idea,” she says, a small smile playing on her lips; it is clearly a much fonder memory than what that businessman—Crocodile—did to her and her family. “At the time, Sanji just moved to Grand Line. His father had a restaurant back in East Blue with the same name, and he told me he would help me build everything back from the ground up. We would borrow the name, acting like we’re a branch of Baratie, and I can rename it back to Alabasta once I can settle all the legalities with Baroque Works.”

Everything slowly falls into place now—the way Sanji is clearly trained to cook dishes much more sophisticated than waffles and scrambled eggs, the freedom he gets to be able to mess around with Zoro, and his close camaraderie with Vivi.

Nami feels a pang of—god, jealousy, if she dares to put a name on it—towards Sanji; for being able to stand by Vivi’s side when she needed it the most. It’s silly, because Sanji has always been kind to her, and it’s not like it was Sanji’s fault that Nami didn’t know Vivi until recently, but the feeling gripped her like a vice anyway, heavy and suffocating.

Vivi seems to have taken her silence wrongly, though, because she looks away, almost shamefully. “You must think this is all stupid.”

“Of course not,” Nami immediately retorts without missing a beat. She thinks of Bellemere, holding her head high despite the judgments from the neighbors. She was alone and penniless, countless doors slammed close in her face just because she was a single mother; but none of that stopped Bellemere from sending Nojiko and Nami to the best school in the neighborhood

So Nami tells Vivi what she has always wanted to tell Bellemere, and what she knows to be true of Vivi, of any women in her life who has never backed down from adversity— “You’re amazing.”

Vivi blinks, cheeks coloring at the words. It takes her a moment before she can reply with a shaky, “Yeah?”

“Yeah? Vivi, you’re—” Nami turns her body to face Vivi fully, grabbing her by the arms, “—you’re the strongest, most hard-working person I’ve ever known. Most people in your shes would’ve turned tails and run.”

Vivi flushes further. It’s the first time Nami has seen her flustered, really cute, actually. And the fact that Nami is the one who put that expression on her face —

“Are we intruding on something?”

Nami almost jumps from her seat, suddenly feeling like she’s five again, getting caught with her hand halfway into the cookie jar. Vivi is scrambling to her feet from her side, cleaning imaginary dust from her uniform as she stammers, “no, of course not! I’m sorry, sir—sirs , can I take your order?”

Nami looks up to see Jinbe laugh and wave at her, signaling her to calm down. Brook is standing right behind him, giving Nami a small wave. “What do you serve?”

Nami tries to return to her map as Vivi starts rattling off the menu, but Brook—wise, old Brook, with his soft voice and observing eyes, goes, “No Zoro this time around, hm?”

Her pen stills. There’s nothing accusatory in Brook’s voice—he would never, none of their friends would never. But she waits for Vivi to be off with their orders still before replying, arms crossed across her chest almost defensively. “What is it to you, old man?”

She realizes a little too late that it’s an awfully rude response, but Jinbe simply laughs. “Old men, aren’t we, Brook?”

“Certainly older than most,” Brook agrees, eyes shining in mirth, not offended the least. “Hopefully wiser, too.”

“Well, sometimes,” Jinbe says, turning to Nami, “old men like us have the fortune—or the misfortune, some may say—to have loved and lost.”

Nami isn’t quite sure where the conversation is going, but there’s grief carried by Jinbe’s voice, and what comes out is, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all long past, miss,” Jinbe dismisses, not unkindly. “More importantly, what I’m trying to ay is, you and Zoro might have been looking at the wrong places. Love, that is. But there is time to rectify this—isn’t that what you young people have? Time”

Nami sits still, stupefied.

She has the suspicion that Robin knows, but Robin has always had her ways. For Jinbe to notice? Jinbe, who would rather talk about his fishing trips than to gossip? How obvious has she been?

(Open book, the thought resurfaces, unbidden. Heart on her sleeve—)

“Though, Nami?” Brook suddenly says, snapping Nami out of her own reverie.

She suddenly realizes that it’s just the two of them on the table, Jinbe already wandering around after imparting her with some advices. She clears her throat, trying to get her bearings. “Yeah?”

“I have to disagree with our dear Jinbe, I must say. We have loved and lost, but,” he takes her hand and guides it to rest on her heart.

“To love,” Brook says, voice steady, sure as a day. “Is never a misfortune.”

r/AmITheAsshole

Realizing I am a lesbian while dating a guy. AITA? submitted 2 months ago by u/throwawaypinwheel

257 comments share save give award report

Realizing I am a lesbian while dating a guy. AITA?

submitted 2 months ago by /u/throwawaypinwheel

I’m a girl who has gone through a couple of dates with a dude, but I’m falling in love with another girl. Like, I’m having a gay crisis right now. I’m not actually cheating since we haven’t decided to be exclusive yet, but he’s also a childhood friend, so it makes me wonder if this is a dick move?

To make matters more complicated: my date? Friend? Sort of boyfriend? He seems to have fallen in love with someone else too, and it’s another guy, so he might be gay, too.

Yes, I know bisexuality exists. Can’t exactly speak about him but I think I’m not that, so it’s not like I can suck it up and date him instead. AITA?

[deleted] • 725 points 2 months ago

Aren’t you the OP of that one viral post from r/relationship_advice about the Baratie cook?

/u/throwawaypinwheel • 2324 points 2 months ago

Yes, and that’s relevant, how?

/u/alohci • -20 points 2 months ago

LOL you’re clearly a troll. This isn’t r/CreativeWriting, go write your romance novel somewhere else. I’m reporting you to the mods.

/u/cheesus32 • 1739 points 2 months ago

This is better than most shit on Netflix right now

/u/veloace • 1641 points 2 months ago

Communication is key, OP. Sexualities aside—which is a topic for another day—isn’t this essentially a case of the two of you wanting different things from the relationship?

Nami takes a deep breath and checks her phone for the time.

She sees the 1:00 displayed on the screen. Her appointment with Zoro is supposed to be on twelve thirty, which means she’ll have another 30 minutes as Zoro gets lost on the way to Baratie as usual. One hour was his record.

She takes another deep breath and sighs.

This is it. She’s going to tell Zoro the truth.

It’s rare for her, to be so nervous around Zoro, but in her defense, it’s not like there’s an easy way to say, “hey, sorry, this may come out of nowhere but I’m breaking things off between us. Apparently I’m a lesbian and I’m also in love with the waitress at the place where we’re supposed to be going on dates in. It’s not you, it’s me.”

...Nami really needs to work on her delivery.

Her heart stutters in her chest as the automatic door slides open and Zoro walks in with the grim determination of a soldier going into battle. Perhaps Zoro is more perceptive than she’s giving him credit for. She hopes so—it surely will make this whole sort of-break up easier for the both of them.

She has run her line over and over again in her head, but nothing has prepared her to see Zoro sit down across the table, bow down, and says, “I’m sory, but I don’t think this is working out for us.”

She blinks. Wait. Wait—“ You're breaking up with me?”

“Luffy thinks we’re having a fight because we’ve been acting weird around each other ever since we tried out this whole dating thing, and hell, Nami, he’s right—I’ve seen you less now,” Zoro plows on, oblivious to her shock. “And don’t get me wrong, you’re my best friend, and you’re still my best friend, and I want us back. The us that’s, you know, normal. Alsoimightbeinlovewiththecook .”

Oh.

That’s—oh.

Nami is pretty sure her mouth is hanging open stupidly now, but she can’t bring herself to care. “Holy shit,” she breathes, perplexed. “Reddit was right.”

Zoro finally looks up at that. “What’s red—” he seems to take in her expression for the first time since the conversation started, eyebrows furrowing. ‘Wait. You’re not mad?”

“Mad? No, Zoro, god—how could I be when you’re right?” She feels her body slumping into the chair, the weight she didn’t know she’d been carrying has suddenly been lifted. “We are terrible for each other. I have no idea what got us to agree to this.”

Zoro visibly relaxes. There’s amusement in his tone as he suggests, “the copious amount of alcohol?”

Right. They were in the middle of a drinking competition when the idea of a date came up. “You know what, in hindsight, it’s kind of crazy that we got this far with such a stupid idea.”

“I think I was running away,” Zoro admits, eyes unwittingly darting towards the kitchen. “I couldn’t—I had this thing, for the Cook, but I couldn’t bring myself to admit it. So I tried to make you an excuse for my cowardice.” He bows again. “I’m sorry.”

“No, no, dummy, don’t—” she kicks him on the shin, forcing him to stop bowing. “Stop being all bushido on me. I wasn’t any better. I’m—in love with Vivi.”

It’s Zoro’s turn to look at her in surprise. “What, really?”

It’s comforting, in a way, that at least she isn’t so obvious that Zoro would notice. “Yeah. You’re probably too preoccupied with your pretty blond to notice, but I’ve been pretty smitten myself. And I guess I have you and your little crush to thank for dragging me here in the first place.”

Zoro blushes at that, and it’s cute—not in a way that makes her want to kiss him, but definitely in a way that makes her want to tease him until the end days. God, how did it take her so long to realize she never loved him that way?

“‘Dragging” you, huh?” Zoro seems to decide to hone in on that, probably because he could burn himself alive from embarrassment if he keeps talking about Sanji. “This place is that bad for a date?”

Nami throws her head back and laughs. “You’re the worst date ever, Zoro,” she says, in between peals of laughter. “But you’re the best wingman I’ve ever had.”

“Going on a date again this time?” Vivi asks.

Nami looks at her—really takes her in, her smooth long hair and bright smile and long eyelashes. Holy shit, she’s staring at her eyelashes. She is so fucking gay.

She clears her throat. Focus, Nami. “No, actually, uh, can we talk? Like, super serious.”

Vivi immediately straightens up at that. “Of course. Give me a moment."

She rushes towards the kitchen, probably to tell Sanji that she’ll be occupied for a moment; something pulls inside Nami’s chest at the sight, knowing that Vivi would drop everything to be by Nami’s side.

When Vivi reemerges from the kitchen, she’s no longer carrying the tray and the menu. She takes a seat beside Nami and takes her hand. “Is everything all right?”

“Yeah, kind of, uh,” here goes nothing. “Zoro and I broke up.”

Vivi’s free hand shot up to cover her mouth in surprise. “Oh my god, Nami, I’m so sorry.”

“No, no, don’t be,” she rushes to clarify, before Vivi gets the wrong idea, “I did say we broke up, but that isn’t exactly right—I mean, we were never exclusive, Vivi. And I don’t think we were ever dating for real. Like, we’re gay.”

There’s a beat. “What?”

Okay, so Nami could have broken the news much more smoothly than that.

“Zoro and I, uh—I’m gay. And Zoro never exactly put a label, but I’m pretty sure he never even dreamed of banging a chick, and—” she squeezes Vivi’s hand. She isn’t sure she’s doing it for Vivi or herself. “I know this is a lot, but I just—I think we were just very comfortable with each other, and since we are man and woman, we somehow thought we should date. Which is dumb, looking back at it, but we’d never fallen in love before.”

She thinks of Vivi—beautiful, fierce, kind Vivi, who carries the world on her shoulders. Vivi, whose smile lights up the whole room. “We didn’t know how different it was going to be, when it’s the real thing.”

Somewhere behind them, she can hear something heavy hit the floor in the kitchen, which means Zoro must have confessed right about now and Sanji must have dropped something from the shock.

Well, at least Vivi hasn’t dropped anything yet.

“What I’m trying to say is,” she continues, finding newfound courage from the way Vivi looks at her—is that hope in her eyes? “Vivi, you’re the most wonderful, amazing person I’ve ever met, and you’re beautiful and pretty but I like you more than just that.” She takes Vivi’s hand in both of hers now. “Would you go out with me?”

There’s a moment as her words seem to sink in, and Nami feels her blood run cold—what if she read this whole thing wrongly? What if Vivi was straight? What if she was just trying to help out a friend, being the nice person she is?

But then Vivi’s face splits into a smile, soft and golden-warm, the white light of the overhead fluorescence illuminating her almost ethereal-like. “Yes, Nami,” she says, lacing their fingers together, “I would love to go out with you. But only on one condition.”

“Anything,” Nami says without thinking, because it’s true.

Vivi grins, and there’s a teasing edge on her voice as she says, “If you’re asking me on a date in a diner, count me out.”

“Oh my god,” Nami says, finally, finally pulling Vivi in for a kiss, “never again.”

UPDATE: My (20F) Date (21M) has left me for a Baratie cook (21M)

submitted 3 days ago by /u/throwawaypinwheel

It’s fine though, I have a girlfriend (18F, beautiful, amazing, doesn’t get into fights with random cooks) now. Yes, it’s the waitress. Yes, you guys have told me so. I’d love to take the L, but I’m the one with a hot girlfriend here, so am I really losing in this scenario?

#namivivi #zosan #nami #roronoa zoro #sanji #nefertari vivi #one piece #my writing #//#vivi #zoro #op

188 notes · View notes

vemuabhi · 4 years ago

Note

Hii! It´s me popping here again! How are you doing? So, I would like to ask if you have a favorite Sanji moment and outfit (if it´s possible to chose hahaha) <3

Author san~~~ I'm doing good. How are you. And.... this ask... it took a long while for me to collect the pictures and scenes. I had so many scenes but I tried so much to cut them down to some of the scenes.

This is going to be a long freaking post. With cusses and spoilers.

Sit back and play a song for feels!

My Favourite Sanji scenes!!!

Warnings : Simping, Please be aware I sometimes cuss at that man because I love him. That is how I really am. I cuss the person that I love idk why. But not all the people I cuss are the ones I love. There will be a lot of difference and I'll respect that.

Disclaimer: This is solely my pure opinion.

There are just so many moments like when Sanji saves Otama or tries on his raid suit and all those but Tumblr won't allow me to post more than 10 pictures sadly. So I did the only scenes part here, I'll do outfits in other post and make sure I'll link it here too. Check it out also!

So.. yeah... here it goes. My favourite scenes of Snooj!!

1) Sanji VS Enel

the 1st thing I always remember about Sanjis Coolest scenes is the one at skypiea. Sadly its one of the underrated scene of the anime.

Sanji in this scene protects Ussop and takes the hit. See his smile at the end. Wait for it. The SanUso moment is so pure where ussop understands Sanjis feelings completely.

He stands still even after receiving the hit and then takes a puff of his cigarette and says "Thanks, I needed a light", then falls down. Please... why isn't he given more credit. He is an amazing chef and yes I know you see it but... he has his amazing fight scenes too.

I absolutely adore the way Sanji always thinks about so many things while he fights. I mean... he plays with the mind too. You see, in this same scene he made sure to ruin enels ark from the inside. He is like this in another movie too. Not only that, a scene in alabasta arc too, where he enters into the base of Mr. 3 and talks to crocodile.

2) Sanji saving the Vinsmokes

Even after facing so much of abuse, he still saved his father and siblings. Looking at them after saving their asses is a delight to watch.

This is the moment they all realise that Sanji won... he has become stronger without their genes and techniques.

3) Sanji shouts at Luffy for Ussop

As Ussop and Luffy start to argue about merry, Luffy almost says to pack up and leave but he was stopped in between because Sanji kicks gim in the face and shouts at him for almost saying Ussop should leave.

Sanji never lets anyone to talk about leaving (even though he left and had a huge ass arc for him). He really cares about his crew and hates and it is really shown here. Not only the ladies. He definitely cares about the guys of the crew too.

4) Sanji uses Knives to fight

Cmon... its the only fight of Sanjis that he uses knives. The person being a chef and using food to fight made Sanji even more angry. He was already trying to find Robin chan and got into this shit where another chef keeps his kitchen dirty and uses food, pissed him off.

He decided to teach him a lesson and got into the fight by using Knives (Improvisation on spot!) Isnt he excellent here.

5) Reunion with Luffy

Getting back to his King, his Captain Luffy was the only scene where Sanji smiled truly after coming to the Whole Cake island. Its way too adorable. Him realising what he truly wants and to know that his nakama would save him definitely if he is in any problem.

Their smile is definitely the most precious. Infact for me... their smiles are the one piece for me. The most valuable treasures.

Bonus scenes

* Sanji saving the Maid of Vinsmoke family

Never he lets anyone harm a lady. Its not him. I could add Kalifa scene here but... this is also a good scene. One of the reasons why I really respect him. Yeah it gets annoying some times but... still its just how he is.

* Him saving Tashigi because he heard her cry.

I know its Extra af but cmon, we are dealing with Sanji here. Its going to be like that.

* Sanji's Surgeries

He is the best plastic surgeon ever. I won't step back on this opinion. He just makes people to completely change their faces. There were 2 of these who were shown in the anime. I really wanna see more people though.

* AceSan and ZoSan moments

I definitely love these scenes so much. The Ace scene is just so beautiful + dreamy. He was so daamn polite and so nice with Ace. Yes Sanji is good with everyone if they are polite with him.

The ZoSan scene is perfect + precious. Yes this is the thirst quencher for me. I adore this moment very much. Please they could've kissed.

The next one is kinda personal and not that needed. So I suggest you to skip this.

Like Comment and Reblog this! And share your favourite moments of Sanji with me!!!

XOXOXOXO

But if you wanna read then go ahead.

* After Sanji and Pudding Kiss and also pudding cries.

This scene was so emotional and personal to me...

Its weird but... when she was crying, I was crying too. Idk why These feelings were there but... It was the moment I realised I liked that jerk Sanji. And... I actually dont like pudding. Everything about her felt a bit odd and not trustworthy. But... when she cried. I cried too. When I was rewatching that scene now again, I cried. I myself don't know why I cry watching that scene. I get so many mixed emotions and my feelings are not even clear to me. I don't know.

If you did read this. Thankyou for reading.

Like Comment and Reblog this! And share your favourite moments of Sanji with me!!!

Wait.. you say you didn't read my post on "my favourite outfits" then click here!!!

#one piece #sanji x reader #sanji #one piece sanji #black leg sanji #sanji imagine #one piece x reader #one piece strawhats #zosan #whole cake island

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writingoneshots · 4 years ago

Note

Hey uhm first of all I just wanna say, your fics are really good!😭❤ secondly, I appreciate the amount of effort you put in to your fics so thank you so much!

How about having an argument with Zoro, Sanji, Ace and Law and f!s/o accidentally says "i hate you", what would their reaction be like?

Angst but fluff and comfort ending if u may omg agsjsvs

N e wayz, have an amazing day bub!❤🥺

Sensitive Topic

Hello softiebadbitch :) ! love this name.

I wasn't really sure how to add 4 readers into one story but I think I found a good solution. It's clear to me that you wanted to have 4 separate stories but this would have been too long for one post and you can't use one request for several posts.. sadly. Hope this fixed it - I made one general story and continued with 4 different endings. All of them are in the reader version but the 'extra girlfriends' have their specific names to not make it too complicated.

Kind of like this way of writing.. wouldn't mind more requests like this :) ! Thanks for letting me explore this new style even though it probably wasn't intended.

And thank you so much for the kind words. I really appreciate it <3 especially because I don't know if anything I write is good enough for Tumblr or literally any request. Thank you, thank you, thank you <3 !

- Ace x reader - ZoroxRey, SanjixAna, LawxValeria (if one of these names is yours.. you're welcome) - 2,774 words (but it's a 4 in 1 story) - lovey-dovey, little pain in our chest, signs of smut, still SFW, cute moments

Spending some girl-time with your closest best friends was a really rare occasion after spending years on many pirate ships. Especially bonding with female human beings was hard. But since you were dating Ace, you finally got the chance after meeting his friends. Some of them were already in a relationship with their current partners and the rest just started dating. After a successful shopping day, you spend the rest of the evening in the fanciest diner on this island and booked a whole room just for you and your better halves. The men were probably still training or doing something unimportant, but none of you cared. "Can you believe the guy from the bakery? He dared to follow us around just to carry our bags..?", Rey laughed and finished her second glass of wine. "Just please don't tell Sanji about it. He is already heartbroken because I went shopping without him.", Ana pouted and sighed a bit sad. You rolled your eyes, "Stop whining. This is the first time after eight months that we could hang out together. And we didn't have to worry about carrying something." "Plus, the guy seemed to be really into you, Ana.", Rey smirked and gave her a flirty wink. "Stop saying that! Sanji could come here any minute! You know how jealous he can get!", Ana warned Rey and glared at her. This was the worst timing ever. "Jealous? Why?! Did anyone touch you?!", Sanji's eyes were already in flames and he almost teleported himself to his girlfriend after hearing these words. The men decided to join you all on the right - or maybe wrong? - time and chose to mock the conversation. "Probably some weird girly things, we don't wanna know about.", Ace grinned and sat down right in front of you. The men sat down on the other side of the table and didn't even choose to greet them with a hug or a kiss, except for Sanji, who could barely let his fingers of Ana. You raised an eyebrow at Ace's comment, "What?" "Just kidding! You had probably something important to talk about.. like which nail color you're supposed to get next week.", Ace added and high-fived Zoro. "Or what hairstyle you should make to match your earrings!", Zoro couldn't stop laughing at his own comment. Ace turned to Law for another high five but he just glared at the topless pirate. "What? You're leaving me hanging like this?!" "Don't drag me into this.", Law turned away from him and faced Valeria, who seemed pleased by his answer. The others were not though. You were still confused by Ace's behavior but slowly understood that he tried to be as manly as possible in front of the others. Sanji sat down on his place after failing to convince Ana to have her sit on his lap. "What do you mean? An hour ago you were talking about how Valeria tried to draw her eyeliner but ended up looking like a panda!", Ace laughed and high-fived Zoro again, who seemed to feel a bit unsure about Ace's comment now. Rey looked down at her drink, already realizing how quickly the mood changed since they started making fun of all of you. Valeria was shocked. She didn't know how to respond and just shook her head, ignoring Law's desperate look on his face. "That's enough, Ace.", you talked silently and poured yourself some wine, not caring about the waiter offering to do it for you. "What.. I-", Ace froze after seeing your face. It pained him to see you being disappointed and he didn't know how that happened. "I am sorry if I have offended anyone.. we were just talking.. ", he cleared his throat and began to feel uncomfortable. He didn't see that coming. "Then maybe you should stop it", you were still not able to look up. "Stop what? Talking?" "Yes.", your eyes flashed up to him now. He didn't expect to see the anger in them. Ace has never seen that glare directed at him. It felt way too painful. "Okay, everyone. Let's calm down now and enjoy this dinner.", Sanji tried to cool down the situation and looked at the food, which didn't look good enough for his girlfriend. "Gonna be hard when you're here.", Zoro commented under his breath and was already eating his meal. "Huh?!", Sanji clenched

his teeth and tensed all his muscles to not smack Zoro for that comment. "Can you just calm down, you two?!", Ana took a deep and annoyed breath, trying to stay calm in this uncomfortable scenario. Ace couldn't stop but to look at you, ignoring him now. "Valeria-" "Don't.", she stopped Law from whatever he was trying to say. Everyone was quiet. Nobody was eating. "..anyone want some extra bread?", the waiter whispered and stood behind you, holding up a basket with fresh bread.

-----

Ace x reader When you arrived in the room of your hotel, you still didn't dare to say a word. You were still furious about his behavior, especially because this wasn't the first time he dared to say something like that. "(Y/N), I am-" "I don't want to hear it." "Please, just let me-" "I said, that I don't want to hear it.", you hit your jacket onto the bed and let go of it a few seconds after. Taking a deep breath, Ace pressed his lips together and didn't know what to say or do. You two never had a fight like this and he feared to say something wrong, which would make you leave him. "I don't want us to go to bed angry.", he whispered sadly and stepped closer to you. You just froze and closed your eyes, trying to remain calm. "You always do this.. every time you make fun of something I do. I stopped talking about my hobbies and literally anything that makes me happy and you caught a glimpse of us having fun, and immediately you chose to mock it..." Ace frowned at that and thought back to all the times he tried to have fun with you. He never understood any of your hobbies or what girls liked, which is why he tried to spend some time with you by making jokes but it never occurred to him that it was actually hurting you. "Why did you never tell me that? I didn't know that it hurt you.." "Because I shouldn't need to tell you! I hate when you try to make fun of me or other people like that! You literally took the joy of me doing my hair, trying to learn how to skateboard or even baking muffins! I hate this, I hate the fights and I hate yo-" Both of you froze right on your spots. "Oh my God..", tears were rolling down your eyes and your knees weren't able to support you any longer. You immediately went down to your knees and hid your face in your hands. "I didn't want to say this.. it slipped.. I don't hate you, Ace!" Your heart was aching at what you were about to say. Ace didn't feel any better. He sat down right next to you and watched you wiping your tears away. "I have caused this... I am sorry, (Y/N).. This will never happen again, I promise. I just wanted to be a part of something in your life.", he took a deep breath and pulled you onto his lap. "I will find another way. Just please.. don't hate me." You shook your head and hugged him tight back, hiding your face in his neck and never ever letting him go. --- Zoro x Rey Zoro came out of the shower, just a towel around his hips and water still dripping down his naked chest. This was usually a sight, which made you jump right onto him but not this time. The pirate hunter had hoped for you to fall for it because he was really bad at apologizing but he knew you had a stronger will than him. He would have fallen for it. You were already in bed, cuddled into your pillow and ignoring him professionally. "Rey.. I can feel that you're not sleeping.", Zoro approached the bed and sighed when you didn't respond. "..are you mad at me?", he whispered now carefully. You raised an eyebrow at this provocative question and pressed your lips together, trying not to give back a stupid answer. But your mouth responded faster than your brain. "No, I am super happy about today's events. We can repeat that tomorrow again, if you feel like making fun of women-things.", you added in a sarcastic tone. "So.. that's a yes?" You turned around, the pillow tight in your grip and pulled the pillow with a loud thud onto his face. When you took the pillow away, you narrowed your eyes at his provocative smirk. "Definitely, yes." "Shut up.", you sighed and were about to turn around again but he grabbed your wrist and pulled you to the other side of the bed until you were facing him. "Stop running away from your problems all the time, lady." "I really hate when you are doing this!", you tried to free your arm from his grip. "What?" "Using your strength to make me do whatever you want to!" "This is literally the reason, why you started dating me. Because I am not a weakling, who gets dragged by everyone like your stupid exes. But if you really hate it, then that means you must hate me

too, right?", he leaned forward, making sure not to miss any sort of reaction in your eyes. You looked at him surprised and didn't know what to say. After a few seconds, you shook your head and sighed a bit. "I couldn't hate you for being you. I hate the fact that you're making fun of girl-things all the time." "Alright, I'll stop then.", Zoro promised and let go of your hand. He turned around and went to the pile of washed clothes on the couch to pick out something to sleep in. Right.. I forgot how easy it can be in a relationship. You talk, promise and go on. Not believing what he just did, your brain had a thousand thoughts about what would happen during this night but it did not involve any sort of clothes. You stood up, went to him, and pulled away his towel. Zoro turned around, surprised by your decision, "Oj.. bad girl." --- Sanji x Ana After this emotional and very unusual dinner, you decided to have some tea. Sanji was still in your bedroom preparing a bath for you even though you've told him that you weren't in the mood for it. You hid in the kitchen and cooked some water, while preparing the rest. While you were looking for the honey, which he was hiding from Luffy, Sanji entered the kitchen. "Oj, what are you doing?", he approached you and immediately figured that you were making some tea. "Just something to warm myself up with a sweet taste.", you smiled a bit exhausted and felt Sanji's arms around you in an instant. "I am sorry for today.. I know that I promised you to not get triggered because of that marimo but his bare existence is to annoy me.", Sanji tried to brighten the mood and gave you a soft kiss on your head. "No, it's okay.. I am already used to it. I just wanted to have a chill day with the girls and this fight kind of ruined everything again.", you shrugged and leaned softly onto him, enjoying his muscular arms supporting you. "Oh.. so you don't hate me, right?" You laughed softly. The relationship had only just begun and Sanji had to question every move of yours. "I could never...", you looked up to him and kissed his warm lips softly, forgetting about everything that had happened in the last hour. --- Law x Valeria Law used his room ability to create a bubble surrounding the two of you. He carefully stepped closer and put his arm around your waist only to see you turn your head away from him. He tensed his jaw, trying to hide the sudden strike of pain in his chest and just decided to ignore it for now. "Shambles." You found yourself in your and Law's bedroom. After a few seconds, you just freed yourself from his arm and went straight into the bathroom, locking yourself in. Law just stood there, not knowing what to do or say. He had definitely hurt your feelings but he didn't know how to apologize for it. "Val..", he closed the distance slowly to the door and tried to listen to whatever you were doing inside. It sounded like you were throwing something away and sniffling quietly. Fuck.. "Valeria.. what are you doing?" "Cleaning.", your response was sharp. Law knew that he was a genius, who could solve the hardest puzzle on this planet or even have a detailed discussion with Robin, but even Luffy or Kid would have been able to figure out what you were doing right now. "Stop throwing away your things. I like it when you put on your make-up." "Are you sure about that? Or are you going to call me a dog or a salamander the next time you talk to others?!", you wiped away your tears and threw away the rest of the make-up, which you bought today. "Stop overreacting. I was just talking about your eyeliner the other day and you hated it too. Take out the make-up again and forget about it.", he sighed and knew that this wasn't something he should say but he also knew that it would trigger you enough to get out of the bathroom. "You know what-!", you opened the door harshly and stepped out, pointing your index finger at him. Law had a hard time hiding his cheeky smile because he already knew you well enough. "I hate what you're doing! Always talking about me behind my back! I hate

you for it!", you crossed your arms at your chest and took a deep breath, trying to control the last brain cells, which are still able to hold you back from kissing his cheeky smirk. The pirate captain raised an eyebrow at that and needed a second to choose his next words wisely. "Did you just tell me that you hate me?" "I said that I hate you for it! Not that I hate you!" "This is literally the same..", Law tilted his head a bit and couldn't quite accept that. "I hate it when you talk about me behind my back before talking to me personally. You were the first one to say 'I love you' but not directly to me.. no! You said it to Bepo first and he told me. Then you said that you preferred my soft cookies more than the brownies but again: you didn't tell me! You told Sanji! And to the newest 'Law is a wimp and can't tell his girlfriend anything personally', you told the boys that I looked like a damn panda!" "But a cute one..", Law smirked now and stepped closer, putting his hand on your cheek softly. You were just about to smack it away but Law was faster. He pushed you against a wall within a second and pressed his body against yours. His hand rested on your neck and he pressed his thumb against your chin, forcing you to look up at him. "Say it again, Valeria..", he purred your name in his dangerously sexy voice. "Say that you hate me." You frowned at his reaction and didn't really understand how this turned him on. "No, you weirdo." "Say it.", he commanded now and leaned closer to you, your lips barely touching. "Make me.", your last brain cells just said their goodbyes. A harsh sound of him pulling out his belt appeared beside you and you couldn't look away. His eyes were focused on yours as if he'd die if he'd miss anything for a second. "Don't tell Bepo.. but you're my favorite panda." "You fucking... I really hate you now.", you spoke through your teeth and tried to push him away. The most heartwarming laugh escaped Law's lips and he immediately locked his lips with yours, not giving you a chance to respond to him laughing. Law pulled your arms behind your back and tied them with his belt. "That's my girl.", he whispered in between your kiss and didn't let go of you for the rest of the night.

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kaizokuou-ni-naru · 4 years ago

Text

The Voyage So Far: Paramount War (Part One)

east blue (1 | 2) || alabasta (1 | 2) || skypiea || water 7 || enies lobby || thriller bark || paramount war (1 | 2) || fishman island || punk hazard || dressrosa (1 | 2) || whole cake island || wano (1 | 2)

the introduction of the celestial dragons really is just so brutally effective. this is the first time we see them, and before they even show up on page they immediately establish themselves as both absolutely powerful and absolutely despicable. everyone is watching them commit atrocities in broad daylight, and nobody dares say a word.

i mentioned it back in the enies lobby post, i think, with spandam, but oda is very, very good at creating villains who it just feels so good and so deeply satisfying to see them get annihilated, and the celestial dragons are maybe the crowning example of it.

i really like how none of the strawhats are really intimidated or impressed at all by the celestial dragons, in sharp contrast to how everyone else responds to them. some of that is ignorance, but you can’t tell me zoro would have acted any differently in this scene had he known charloss was a member of the world’s ruling class. all the power the celestial dragons have comes from fear; of course their greatest weakness is someone who just doesn’t care.

obviously this moment is just excellent, no qualifiers needed, but one thing i really love about it is how all the bad shit that results from this does not detract from the sheer satisfaction of what happens at the auction house at all. like, even though this leads directly to the strawhats getting crushed by the pacifista and kizaru and scattered by kuma, i’ve never once caught myself thinking luffy shouldn’t have done this.

i’m a huge fan of how rayleigh introduces himself. he knocks out the whole action house with conqueror’s haki, but luffy is completely unaffected, and the two of them just watch each other down the aisle for a moment as everyone else collapses around them.

i don’t know that i’ll ever get over the fact that oda created and designed the supernovas as he was writing sabaody. they’re all such distinct and memorable characters, and almost all of them have fit neatly into the post-timeskip story one way or another. they really feel like a part of the world that was always meant to be there.

i think the way roger as a character is handled is very, very cool, because we don’t really meet him as a person- when we first learn of him, on the very first page, he’s a myth, a story, a framing device. which is fitting, because that’s all the characters know him as. the rest of the world doesn’t know what roger was like as a person or why he did what he did, and so neither do our main characters and neither do we.

and then we learn, slowly, by following in roger’s steps and meeting the characters who did know him, like rayleigh and whitebeard and garp. and through their testimony and memories, over the course of the story, roger goes from being a faceless myth to being a proper character.

i think this panel, where luffy says he just wants to be the freest person on the seas, might be my favorite luffy panel. if nothing else, it’s definitely one of the ones i think about the most in terms of his characterization. luffy’s been defining himself by his dream since the very start of the story- he’s the man who’s going to be king of the pirates! but it’s only here that we learn what that goal actually means to him, and what he actually really wants. he just wants to be free.

the tone shift of sabaody really is impeccable. because up until a certain point, everything seems pretty par for the course. the strawhats make some new friends, get into trouble for their sakes, get into a hard fight where they all have to work together but eventually scrape out a win.

but then kizaru shows up, and another pacifista, and kuma himself, and for the first time in the story luffy says this is a fight they can’t win-

and then zoro disappears, and all of the audience’s expectations for how this is going to play out get thrown completely out the window.

it’s not that we haven’t seen luffy upset before this- his fight with usopp in water 7 and merry’s funeral are the two obvious examples that come to mind- but we’ve never, to this point, seen him as crushed as he is at the end of sabaody. it really drives the abrupt tone shift of sabaody home, because we’re used to seeing luffy be generally cheerful, and if not that, at stubbornly determined to power through. but here, he’s just wrecked- and the paramount war saga is just getting started.

every time i see hancock i’m reminded what a lesbian i am.

i’m talking a lot about character introductions this post, but a lot of really good characters get introduced in the first half of this saga, from the supernovas to rayleigh to jinbe. on that note, i really like hancock’s introduction, for reasons similar to what i said about roger earlier. she’s introduced as a cartoonishly evil one-dimensional bitch, and she leans hard into that characterization for the first half or so of amazon lily.

and then luffy narrowly keeps her and her sisters’ worst fear from being realized, and her facade starts to slip, and we get to know her as- still kind of a bitch, but also a deeply traumatized person who has very valid reasons for being the way she is, and someone who is overall a lot more complicated than she appears at first glance.

one of my favorite things about luffy is his ability to always, always defy expectations. hancock is dead certain he’ll take her offer of a ship and abandon marguerite and the others, but he doesn’t even hesitate before doing the exact opposite. luffy is always turning people’s worlds upside down.

i have a friend who coined the term “conflict of interest arc” to refer to the arcs where a crewmate is forced to choose between the crew and some obligation or baggage from their past- arlong park for nami, whole cake island for sanji, etc.

marineford is luffy’s conflict of interest arc- he has to make the choice, here, to prioritize saving ace over reuniting with his crew. where it differs from all other such arcs, then, is that nobody else can come to back him up. he’s well and truly on his own.

i love how thoroughly expectations get turned on their head with jinbe. for the longest time, all we know about him is that he’s a shichibukai and arlong’s former captain, so given what arlong was like and what the shichibukai encountered thus far have been like, it’s a fair guess to assume he’s pretty awful.

and then we meet him, and he’s ace’s friend, sitting bloody and beaten in the deepest dungeons of impel down for refusing to fight in an unjust war.

bon-chan is really one of the greatest examples of one piece’s stubborn refusal to treat any character as disposable, and oda’s endless ability to find new and interesting ways to fit them into the story. in pretty much any other manga, it would be all but guaranteed that we wouldn’t see a character like bon-chan again after the conclusion of the alabasta saga. here, luffy straight up would not have made it to marineford without him. this is true for mr. 3 too- who would’ve thought his ability to duplicate keys out of wax, established and promptly forgotten some three hundred chapters ago, would be the thing that let luffy free ace on the scaffold?

magellan is a good antagonist. i’m not saying i like him- i don’t particularly- but he’s a great antagonist for a couple reasons, and one of them is that his powers are terrifying. magellan is essentially what might be called in video game terminology an advancing wall of doom- the only viable strategy for dealing with him is to run.

i had more i wanted to say here but it literally kept turning into a rant about one piece’s take on morality no matter how many times i tried to keep it short, so i’ll settle for just saying that magellan is an antagonist but not a villain and i think that’s interesting.

the absolutely ridiculous, eclectic mix of people that luffy winds up gathering to escape impel down is possibly my favorite part of the whole arc. i just think it’s so fun and so characteristic of him that even when separated from his crew, he winds up attracting the weirdest, most powerful bunch of people around to break out of prison with.

the relationship between luffy and blackbeard is a really interesting one. it’s been plenty clear for some time that blackbeard is almost certainly going to be luffy’s final opponent to become pirate king, and yet they’ve been mostly running on parallel paths through the world, only occasionally coinciding (such as here and in jaya) and generally seeming pretty unconcerned with each other. it’s a really cool way to handle the built to an eventual showdown, and i really like it.

this is one of my favorite spreads just for sheer smile factor. i love it so much. i think we should get to see jinbe’s whale shark buddies more often, it’s a crime we haven’t seen them since this.

#the voyage so far #one piece #long post #arc: sabaody #arc: amazon lily #arc: impel down #not japanese

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psychedelic-ink · 4 years ago

Photo

This is my commission for @smol-fatale ! Sorry for the delay, I had to work on this a bit longer then I anticipated since the ones I wrote before never felt right :’) Thank you so much for commissioning me and letting me post it! I hope you enjoy this!

Pairings: Chiara (OC) x Sanji , Zoro x Sanji (established relationship) , Sanji x Chiara x Zoro (implied)

Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Romance

Word count: 2.5k

Summary: After Chiara sacrifices herself and gets injured, Sanji is angry that she would put herself in harms way without thinking about the consequences.

Commissions | Ko-Fi

Chiara gritted her teeth as her eyes darted between the marines who surrounded both her and Usopp. Honestly, they were just supposed to get a couple of supplies and return to the ship, it wasn’t supposed to be a life or death situation. Sure, maybe she was over exaggerating, this wasn’t the first time they were surrounded by marines but the amount of the soldiers just seemed to be unend this time. How long were they supposed to fight these fools?

Quickly her gaze went from the soldiers and to Usopp, she could tell that he was thinking the same thing as her. The sniper sighed and pulled down his goggles. He shot a quick glance at her.

“Let’s try to make an opening,” he said as he pulled out his trusty slingshot. “And run for it when we do.”

“Aye aye.”

━━━━━━━━┛ ✠ ┗━━━━━━━━

Chiara groaned as she felt herself being laid on a bed. By the smells alone she could tell that she was in the sick bay. Feeling two hooves holsting her shirt up, Chiara tried to remember what had happened. The last thing she remembered was fighting a shit ton of marines with Usopp, then...a bullet shot, but it wasn’t aimed at ther it was aimed at the sniper.

“What happened, Usopp?” Chopper’s worried voice reached her ears.

“W-We…” he stuttered, sounding equally distraught. “We were fighting marines, I don’t know how they found us but there were so many of them...one of them fired and she pushed me out of the way.”

“Did she get cut anywhere, do you know?”

“It should be just the bullet wound.”

Oh, so that’s what happened.

“Alright, you can leave Usopp, I’ll let you guys know when I’m done.”

Chiara felt Chopper put something plastic over her nose and mouth, her eyes fluttered as she was lulled into a deep slumber.

━━━━━━━━┛ ✠ ┗━━━━━━━━

When Chiara came to her senses, her whole body ached. Tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth, her eyes darted to the bedside table in hopes to find a glass of water. But in addition to finding a pitcher full of crystal clear water, she also found Sanji sitting next to her. He hadn’t noticed that she was awake, his eyes were glued to the side and he was shaking his leg furiously. He bit his bottom lip and Chiata recognized the signs of withdrawal. Has he been here long enough to crave a smoke so bad?

“Oh you’re awake.”

Sanji noticed her gaze on the pitcher and quickly filled her a glass of water, he helped her straighten up and placed the glass on her chapped lips. Normally, she would’ve just snatched the glass away from him and done it herself, but her arms felt too weak to actually do such a thing.

The water was soothing as it went down her throat, with big gulps Chiara finished the glass in seconds. Sanji placed the glass back on the table and held the pitcher.

“Do you want another glass?”

“No,thanks.”

Sanji removed his hand from the pitcher and started to tweak at the ends of his shirt. Chiara could sense something was off, but to be honest something always was off when the two of them were alone. She could tell there was something bothering him, something that he itched to just say.

“How are you feeling?” he asked instead.

“Better.” she replied simply.

“Good.”

“Just spit it out Sanji.”

This seemed to take him by surprise. His only visible brow was raised as his eyes widened. The cook sighed and leaned back into the chair, scratching the back of his head, he stared at the ceiling.

“Why did you jump in front of a bullet?”

Chiara, her eyebrow raised with visible confusion, shot him a puzzled look. Sanji was unaware of this as he continued to stare at the ceiling, his leg still bobbing up and down.

“I didn’t jump in front of it just for the fun of it you know,” she replied, slightly agitated. “If I hadn’t done that Usopp would’ve gotten shot.”

“How is it better if you get shot?”

Sanji had lowered his gaze back to her. Her eyes were cold and pierced through her. She started to sweat and her pulse quickened. Chiara was surprised that her body reacted so strongly towards a look, especially a look that Sanji gave her. She swallowed. Her mind scanned along all the things she could reply with and none of them felt like something the cook would be happy to hear and none of them held any consolation. But lucky her, Sanji continued to talk.

“You shouldn't just sacrifice yourself like that,” his voice now raised a bit. “Usopp’s body can handle it, you’re a wo—”

“You gotta be kidding me,” Chiara cut him off before he could finish. “I am so sorry Sanji,” she snapped rolling her tongue. “I’m not going to let one of my crewmates get shot instead of me because I’m a “woman”.”

“You could’ve died!” he snapped back, his brow visibly twitching with anger.

“Usopp could’ve died too!”

“He should’ve been protecting you, not the other way around!”

“What do you care, just leave me alone.”

Chiara’s voice had grown eerily low, almost like a whisper. She sounded cold and her words were like weapons. Sanji had visibly stepped back with that, his leg finally stilling as he got up. He didn’t look at her, turning around, his heart felt heavy in his chest.

“Fine, get well soon.”

Chiara let her head fall back against the wall, staring at the sealing, tears stung the corner of her eyes. Why did he have to make everything so complicated for her? She was confused, confused as to why she felt so hurt, so angry. Whenever they were alone she ended up feeling so undeniably naked and bare in front of him. She had no right to feel this way and she certainly had no right to make Sanji feel like that as well.

The door closed and she let out a long sigh.

When was everything going to stop being so complicated?

━━━━━━━━┛ ✠ ┗━━━━━━━━

After the incident everything was pretty much normal except for Chiara’s and Sanji’s relationship. Their friendship was already on thin ice but after their discourse it seemed like even that fell under water. They never talked, only if they had to, no one really seemed to notice but Chiara’s mental state was suffering. Despite being angry at the cook’s misogynistic words that she should be protected just because she was a “woman”, she did miss talking to him.

Sanji had seemed to crawl into a shell as well, he seemed more dependent on Zoro. Sure, he would still flatter the females of the ship with countless desserts and sweet words but something was off in the way he did it. Chiara saw the two men fade into the back of the ship and converse for what seemed to take hours. Chiara was curious but then again she couldn’t really say anything. But the fact that she could so clearly feel Sanji’s distraught made her feel even worse.

The days continued to go on like this, Sanji avoiding any kind of contact with her and her doing the same, only looking at him when his back was turned or during combat. He didn’t seem to notice any of it. It seemed like he was only focused on not bothering her in any way.

And now Chiara sat among Nami’s tangerine trees, listening to the leaves rustled and taking in deep breaths of the citrus smell. She was trying to clear her mind, if such a thing was possible, and maybe try to figure out a way to fix everything.

“Hey,”

Chiara jolted and turned her head towards the voice. Zoro appeared between the leaves, he had a gentle smile on his face as he stared down at her. Chiara pulled her knees close to her chest and averted her eyes with a pout. She heard Zoro sigh and sit down next to her, cross legged.

“You can avoid the cook forever you know?” he said and she could feel his gaze staring into her soul.

“I know that,” Chiara mumbled. “I just don’t know how to talk to him, he makes me so angry.”

“I get that, he pisses me off too.”

Chiara shifted her gaze to Zoro, she was curious as to why Zoro was actually here, talking to her. To be honest Chiara always admired the swordsman and always felt some sort of closeness, she couldn’t quite name it and opted to call it an admiration of strength and level headedness.

“He was really worried about you,” he continued, locking his dark eyes with hers. “I don’t agree with what he said, but believe me that he wasn’t trying to upset you.”

“Well yeah I know that much,” she said, rolling her eyes. “But does his intentions really excuse his weird ass behaviors?”

Zoro chuckled, “Well...no but you two could at least talk about it. You two might seem opposite from each other but you’re more similar to him than you think.”

“Is that so?”

Chiara’s mind faded into her own thoughts. It didn’t seem like Zoro was going to elaborate on what similarities they had. Maybe he wanted her to figure it out on her own? Or maybe he just wanted her to talk it out with Sanji. Chiara didn’t quite know how that conversation would go but then again she trusted Zoro and his views. If Sanji was bothered about the situation enough that Zoro felt like he had to intervene, the situation really must be dire.

But then again she really wouldn’t know what to say so she decided to be straightforward.

“What should I say to him?”

Zoro thought for a bit as he looked off into the distance, then shrugged.

“Just be honest.”

━━━━━━━━┛ ✠ ┗━━━━━━━━

A week had passed since her conversation with Zoro. Chiara really wanted to talk with him but her overthinking and the fact that Sanji was avoiding her, as kindly as he could, made it difficult for her to catch him alone.

Finally as a last resort she decided to ambush him while it was his turn to be on the lookout. She climbed up the crows nest as silently as she could, and gently creaked the door open. Chiara couldn’t help but smile when she saw Sanji looking out with a soft blanket around his broad shoulders.

He flinched at the sound and turned around, Chiara couldn’t tell if he was relaxed or nervous to see her.

“Hey,” she began, closing the door after her. “Whatcha doing?”

Sanji gifted his gaze back to the window and continued to watch the horizon.

“Lookout.” he said nonchalantly. “You?”

“I…” Chiara quickly made her way and sat down next to him. Sanji stiffened but didn’t oppose to the fact that their shoulders were touching. “I wanted to talk.”

“About what?”

“Us.”

That seemed to snap Sanji out of his trance. He looked at her, wide eyed and his eyes quickly scanned her features as he tried to understand if she was serious or not. His over the top reaction made Chiara sight and contemplate whether Sanji was ready or not to have such a conversation. Her eyes fixated on the floor she attempted to get up.

“You know what, never mi—!”

Before she could fully stand up, however, a strong grip took a hold of her wrist and pulled her back down. Chiara let out a groan as she fell back to the ground right next to Sanji, he was looking at her with a piercing gaze, seeming much more calm than before.

“What did you want to talk about?”

Sanji let go of her wrist and Chiara took in a sharp breath, startled. She pulled her knees up to her chest and directed her gaze towards the sea.

“I think we’ve been misunderstanding each other and... I want to stop.” Sanji stood in silence, prompting her to go on. “It’s just… I hate it when you act as if I can’t be strong because I’m a woman but in reality I am strong and it pisses me off that you can’t see that-”

Sanji cut her off, “I know you’re strong, it’s just… I was worried and hate it when you do stuff without giving a second thought of what might happen to you.”

Chiara wasn’t ready to hear how Sanji’s voice trembled. Her eyes wide, they shifted back to him. The cook was staring directly at her with a pained expression. A knot forming in her throat, she swallowed. She wasn’t the type to think about herself when someone she cared for was in danger and she never thought that self sacrifice could so easily hurt another.

“I…”

Chiara was lost of words, gazing into each other's eyes, they inched closer without even knowing. The blanket that Sanji had laid across his shoulders pooled to the floor, the ship gently swayed them, she felt as if she was put into a trance.

Then Chiara felt Sanji’s lips.

It was soft, tender and full of love. Then Zoro’s words echoed in her jumbled up thoughts “just be honest” , the swordsman wasn’t talking about being honest with Sanji but to herself. She felt so afraid to be vulnerable in front of people, in front of them for the longest time. But truth be told, maybe she had fallen for two men instead of one.

Sanji’s the one to break the kiss, his gaze immediately shifting to the floor. Chiara could read the traces of regret all over his face.

“I’m sorry.” he quickly muttered, his fingers ghosting over his lips. “I wasn’t supposed to do that.”

“It’s...okay,” she took in a shaky breath. “It was nice.”

“Do...do you have a crush on me?”

The question caught her a bit by surprise but she couldn’t help but smile at his shy tone. A hint of pink decorated his cheeks.

“I do but...I’m a bit confused since it seems I might like Zoro as well.”

“We actually talked about that.”

Chiara shot Sanji a confused look, the cook was quick to explain what they had been discussing with the swordsman and apparently they had been discussing it for a while. Zoro liked her too but wanted both Sanji and her to work it out before they proposed anything. Chiara was both happy and worried. She didn’t want to disturb their already established relationship and...to be frank she felt like she was a mess. Way too much to deal with.

“I don’t want to come in between you two,” she voiced out her thoughts. “I don’t want to disturb anything.”

“You won’t.” Sanji replied, quickly. “We both care for you Chiara. Both of us and you care about both me and Zoro right?”

“Y-Yeah.”

Sanji pulled her into an embrace, he placed a soft kiss on her cheek.

“You don’t have to answer right now, we can talk to Zoro before you decide anything.”

Chiara nodded, happy that she could talk to both of them. After weeks of silence from Sanji, they were finally talking again. Realized that there was something more to share then friendship.

Chiara was excited of what the future held.

#one piece #one piece oc #one piece imagine #writing commission #sanji x oc #sanji x zoro #zoro x oc #hurt comfort #romance #commission

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human-enthusiast · 3 years ago

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“Debt Repaid” Theme - One Piece

So, I know I should be working on E3S story preview and another analysis/theory post-- something that I have been planning for a long while...

I just couldn’t get this thought out of my head. And I thought it could be interesting to incorporate my thoughts about how the Wano Arc is going. This is more ramblings and hopeful content, but it’s worth writing down at least

Spoilers: From Chapter 1008 - Recent Chapter release (1016)

With the way Wano has been playing it for the last few months, it’s produced a whole bunch of twisted responses. Scenes can switch back and forth from hopeful to disheartening. Considering the enemy the Straw Hats and the Samurai are facing, it makes sense that their victory would not be achieved very easily. And a very common disheartening prospect that is constantly brought up since even before Chapter 1000, is the defeat and possible death of the Akazaya Nine.

Case in point: Ashura Doji, Kiku, and Kin’emon

There’s a few things that should be made clear:

(1) I love ALL the Scabbards (Denjiro, Kawamatsu, and Kiku being my favorites)

(2) A part in writing this is based around my hope for ALL of them to live to see the results of the war.

(3) This ramble isn’t meant to be a complete analysis into why I think it is likely they will survive (I still have doubts), only looking at a certain angle from a story telling perspective. I have my own theory that it is Hiyori who is the mysterious figure that healed the Scabbards the first time in chapter 1004. How she did it so effectively is beyond me (though she may have more medical knowledge and skills than what was led on). And she is following the nine, healing the ones who need it most as a way for her to help in the raid, leading to the success and survival to the scabbards. This is probably a stretch but I’m sticking with it until something is confirmed. And after the last chapter showing her not with Hitetsu or Toko, I’m more confident about it being the case.

There is just as much evidence and speculations for them NOT to survive as much as ones that say they will. I could list out many angles the end of the battle and the survival of the nine could be taken, but most would end up being repeats from others posts that I genuinely agree with. And that’s not what this is intended to be.

What this is meant to be is looking at a theme in One Piece that I couldn’t help but make a slight connection towards in response towards the speculation of the Scabbards dying. And it’s this theme ….

Granted, I don’t know if this could be considered a theme, but I’m calling it a theme. Because, I didn’t realize this for a while, but the message Luffy gives to Sanji in this instance actually comes up more throughout One Piece. Especially with very prominent characters: the Straw Hats, Law, Ace, etc.

A rather important moment that could go hand-in-hand with the “Little-to-no-deaths” in One Piece. Not perfectly, and I don’t think it was intentional, as that goes more with the dreams aspect/theme of the series. However, it has been prominent towards the protagonists in every sense of their stories. There have been many moments that people have given their lives for the various Straw Hats so that they could live. In both current story line and in flashback land.

Shanks giving up his arm (almost his life) to save Luffy so he can achieve his dream in becoming King of the Pirates.

Bellemere sacrificing her life so her daughters could live and know they were loved.

Saul protecting Robin to give her a chance to live and make worthy friends.

Pedro, who saw something worthy in the Straw Hat crew, and giving them a chance to escape Whole Cake Island by sacrificing his life.

Those are just some examples, with plenty more spread out in various arcs.

And it also extends out in the Wano Arc during the Oden Flashback.

When Oden issued that challenge to hold his retainers while being boiled in oil, he would have already been put under plenty of strain on his physical health. And by the end of the challenge, he put in so much faith in the Scabbards that is very much like any other flashback death which is meant to inspire and give the survivors something to live for.

It’s a common theme that I think is a benefactor in what could potentially keep the Samurai alive. In which them living up towards seeing Wano being free is fulfilling their Lord’s dream. His sacrifice and ambition is met through his retainers living because he put so much faith and love for them to live in his place.

Is the thematic threading going to be enough in the end for their survival though? I say no.

I’m not ever going to bet on life or death of a character in this series. That is something I learned and will stick to for the long run. Because you could either be really upset or end up overthinking about it like what I’m doing right now.

And, yeah, a majority of the fake deaths do annoy me on so many levels. Mostly because it gave me unneeded amounts of anxiety and is rather poor use of foreshadowing and/or tension. It would be better if they were not used anymore, absolutely, or they actually stick with the build-up and give the characters a genuine death like it was “meant” to be.

Like I said, I don’t want to bet on life or deaths. This is my hope being laid out in words using a theme that has been used more often in the story than most seem to realize. And it’s a known scene but not mentioned beyond Sanji or Luffy’s character. There are other contenders or outside forces that give that same level of hope that the Azakaya Nine may live, but this is the one that is able to encapsulate something that was set up from the early arcs and continues to be relevant.

#one piece #wano kuni #akazaya nine #one piece themes #wano arc #op spoilers #chapter 1008 #chapter 1014 #chapter 1015 #red scabbards

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itsthemoofacewriting · 5 years ago

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Is it okay if I take my time

Great. So I edited the original post and Tumblr took it out of the search filter it was appearing in. Now I’ve reposted it and it won’t show up. Why do I bother with Tumblr? Maybe I should just stick to AO3 and FFN.

Title is taken from It’s Okay by Clara Benin, I listened to this song a lot whilst I wrote this (Even though I’m 100% sure it’s about the state of the world right now). I also listened to Conversations in the Dark by John Legend, if we all want something a bit more theme appropriate.

I know this has been done a lot since the end of WCI and I’m behind the times, but I finished the arc a couple of weeks ago and wanted a bit more closure between Nami and Sanji. So this is my spin on it and it’s a hot mess! Wrangled with this so many times before giving up and letting it be.

Summary: Because conversations at night are always more intimate and people end up revealing more than they’d expected. Or, Nami and Sanji clear the air after Whole Cake Island. Rating: T.

This can also be found on AO3 and FFN.

Enjoy.

------------------------------

The grass beneath Nami was comforting and soothing as she ran her hands through it. She could have easily sat in a chair; it was within her view, folded in the corner, but laying down gave her a view of the stars above. It was a clear night and a rare moment where everything was calm. There was no crew member to save, no life hanging in the balance or Yonko chasing them. Nami wouldn’t get an opportunity to do this again anytime soon once they reached Wano. There would be lives hanging in the balance and Yonkos chasing them again. So she’d take this moment and run with it, savour it.

A gentle voice interrupted her, “Nami-san, I brought you some tea.”

She sat up with a start. “Sanji-kun! You made me jump. Thank you,” Nami replied, taking the offered teacup. “What are you doing sleuthing about this late at night?” It couldn’t be much anyway, as he was dressed in a pullover hoody and pyjama bottoms. Still, her tone was more accusing than she’d intended

It didn’t seem to faze Sanji though as he smoothly replied, “Carrot just finished her watch, it’s my turn now. I saw you up and figured you’d like something to drink. It’s chamomile, by the way.”

Having a divided crew meant longer watches and it didn’t help that there was no Zoro or Robin. Both of them were night owls (or in Zoro’s case, he just napped too much throughout the day) and normally covered the bulk of the watches. Still, it was difficult and meant they couldn’t afford to lower their guard for one moment. Although they’d escaped Big Mom’s territory, there was still a strained tension in the air as they couldn’t be sure she wasn’t still pursuing.

Similar to the strained tension between the two on deck right now. They were civil and spoke when around each other, but there was still an elephant in the room. Unspoken things that needed airing. It wasn’t clear whether the rest of the crew had realised or not, if they had no one said anything.

Nami hadn’t responded and it didn’t look like she was going to either, so Sanji was left hovering, unsure whether to leave or not, whether to speak.

“Lay down with me Sanji-kun.” She flopped onto her back, not waiting for his response. She knew he would.

Sanji didn’t hesitate, flicking his cigarette over the side of the ship and laying down much closer than she’d anticipating. They laid side by side in silence. Nami didn’t have anything to say but she couldn’t stand his hovering any longer.

But she didn’t need to, Sanji swooped in. “What are you doing out here anyway?”

She shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep and it’s a nice night.”

Sanji seemed to accept that and they laid in silence, observing the stars above them. Except something about this silence was deafening, it wasn’t the comfortable one she was used to, and Nami found herself resisting the urge to fidget under its weight. Her mistake was behaving this way in front of Sanji.

“Is something bothering you?” He looked at her from the corner of his eye and there was something far too knowing there. Damn his perceptiveness.

“No. I can take over from watch if you want to go back to sleep.” He still had wounds to heal and she was starting to get a feeling about where this was going. Probably best to abort.

“That’s not necessary, I can do it from here for the time being and when you’re ready to go to sleep, I’ll move to the crow’s nest.”

Hm, no escape.

Distraction is was then.

“It’s a lovely night, so clear,” Nami said conversationally, “If you look over there, that’s the constellation Aquila-”

“Nami-san,” Sanji interrupted, his voice firm. Normally he wouldn’t press Nami to do things she didn’t want to but, he must know as much as she does that things between them needed to be cleared up.

She didn’t respond straight away. Not knowing how to start or if she even wanted to. Sanji didn’t seem impatient, just waiting. “I’m angry,” Nami said bluntly, she didn’t know whether it was the best way to go about it, but she was sick of thinking.

His voice was soft again, “I’m so sorry-”

“With you and with myself… and, just everything.”

Sanji didn’t say anything. That wasn’t what he was expecting, but she always did exceed his expectations.

“I was ready to leave you behind. I tried convincing Luffy to leave and I took your words at face value. How stupid considering I’ve been in the same place myself; I should have known better.” Nami shook her head at her own words, clearly agitated at the thought. “But after all we’ve been through and you were so willing to sacrifice your life. You treat your life so lightly and I hate it.” She paused. “But it’s silly isn’t it? I know why you did those things; you had such good reason to. But I can’t shake it.”

“My intention was to make you leave. I knew Luffy wouldn’t alone, he’s too selfish and single minded. I was hoping between my words and your feelings it would be enough, but well, that didn’t work,” Sanji said. He was trying to make her feel better about her decision, of course he was. But he dodged the part about his self-sacrificing nature, she noticed.

When they settled back into silence this time, it was lighter, Nami felt like she could breath. She slightly wondered if this was the end of their conversation, that maybe Sanji wouldn’t push it any further.

But she was wrong.

“I missed you.” Sanji’s words were barely a whisper, but Nami still heard.

“Didn’t seem to miss me that much when you proposed to Pudding.” The words were out before she could think about what she was saying, and she cringed at how jealous she sounded.

“I know but I was trying to make the best of a bad situation. Honestly.”

Nami snorted but chided herself afterwards. He had originally refused the marriage and the moment he was on the home stretch he hadn’t looked back. Sanji sighed and Nami felt a bit bad about giving him such a hard time, she knew he was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

“Sorry. I know you refused the marriage before it got so complicated.” Nami was so frustrated.

“You know, I’m happy you’re angry,” Sanji hummed in delight, circling back to their previous conversation.

Nami turned her head to give him an odd look. “Perhaps you should go back to sleep, you’re not thinking straight.”

“No I am.” He smiled happily at her. “It means that you care about me.”

She snorted, feeling defensive about the way he’d phrased that. “Of course I do. Friends care about each other.” That’s right, she could downplay this.

“No, you care about me, that’s why you’re still so bothered by all of this,” Sanji smugly replied, not letting her explanation settle. But then he seemed to do a double take, hesitating at his over-confidence. “But, y’know, if you’re not ready…”

Nami heaved a sigh. He was giving her an out, but she knew if she didn’t do this now, they’d be back here further down the line. There was no escaping this. But did she really want to? Goddamn her for catching feelings. Why did she invite him to lay down? A small part of her knew it was because she wanted to have this conversation. She wanted this.

They’d been so close on Zou. Despite the dire situation the mink people had been in before they arrived, they’d been on the cusp of something. Hands that lingered just a second too long, gazes that strayed to the other when they weren’t around. This wasn’t sometime particularly new for Sanji, but it was new territory for Nami. Sanji wasn’t a fool either, he’d noticed. He’d returned it tenfold and even sought her out more often. And she’d enjoyed that. Then again, it didn’t stop her from setting his head straight when he got a bit too overzealous, but it was there. Subtle and building. Then shit hit the fan and messed everything up.

In her smallest voice, she whispered back, “I missed you too.”

She’d expected Sanji to ruin the moment, to start prancing about and shouting as he declared his love for her and that she returned it. Instead, he remained silent, looking up at the stars, a small smile curling up on his face. She felt his fingers tentatively reach out to hers, brushing against the tips of her fingers cautiously.

After a second, she realised it wasn’t caution, he was letting her make the final move. He’d extended the invitation and was giving her the opportunity to accept or reject it. She could lay here and make a bunch of excuses to not take the leap, Sanji would let her, but ultimately, she felt the same way. Now wasn’t the time to be a coward.

Her fingers covered the last distance, resting over his and curling around them, twining them together. Sanji let out a relieved sigh, for all his talk and prancing about, this meant a lot for him. His thumb traced along her hand lightly, enjoying the moment before his fingers squeezed hers, letting her know of his happiness.

She squeezed back.

“Your family suck by the way.”

“That’s an understatement.” Sanji let out a dark chuckle. “You impressed my brothers by the way, they wouldn’t stop talking about you. It was incredibly aggravating.”

“There’s only one Vinsmoke I’m interested in.”

“Reiju?”

“Oh good, now I don’t have to think about how to break it to you.”

Sanji’s laugh was lighter now and his fingers were squeezing hers again, amused by her words. She joined him, enjoying the moment to laugh with him again.

There was just one thing left bothering her and she’d rather see his face for this. She untangled her hand, his chasing after hers until she used that arm to prop her head on as she rolled on her side. Nothing needed to be said for Sanji to mimic her actions and she was looking into baby blue eyes. She was impressed, his eyes didn’t waver to her chest, staying firmly planted on her face, which she imagined was quite a feat in this position with a flimsy pyjama top on. Then again, this was a serious topic and he was never one to joke around in those kinds of situations. It was something Nami liked about Sanji, he knew when to reign it in and when to joke around. He read her so well. There was something daunting about that as well.

“Look, about Pudding…” Nami started to say but she was unsure how to finish.

“Pudding is a nice, albeit complicated person- probably a bit messed up from Big Mom’s upbringing- and she’s a fantastic baker.” Sanji finished. Nami couldn’t keep the disgruntled look off of her face. Sanji continued before she could say anything, “But she’s not you. No other woman is.”

Nami could feel heat blooming on her cheeks, it didn’t help that they were now face to face and she was confronted by the warm expression on Sanji’s face. “You’re a sap.” She gently pushed against his chest, not knowing how to deal with his adoring look. His hand trapped hers against his chest.

And it was in that moment, when she looked back at his face, that she realised just how close they were. Sanji’s expression was so soft and warm and she could feel herself being pulled in. Her eyes closed as their lips brushed together, feather light against the others and Sanji hummed in content. When they pulled apart, she opened her eyes and felt butterflies erupt in her stomach at the tender smile he gave her. The butterflies were now in a frenzy as he leaned back in, his lips tenderly moving against hers as his thumb rubbed little circles on the back of her hand.

Neither moved away when they broke the kiss, a hair’s breadth apart as their breath mingled together.

“I think I was scared,” Nami whispered against his lips. The darkness providing the security she needed to be honest. “Scared of losing you.”

“I was scared too,” Sanji whispered back, his nose nudging against hers in reassurance. “Being trapped in a place I hated. Having to leave the crew. Not being able see those dumbasses and Robin-chan ever again. Not seeing you.”

Nami’s heart twisted at the sentence ‘Being trapped in a place I hated’. They mirrored her childhood so well and her stomach churned at the thought of what he’d been through. She didn’t know a lot about Sanji’s childhood, he’d never shared, and she was starting to understand why now. Considering what Judge had said when the Straw hats and Vinsmokes had parted, it wasn’t pleasant. And there was that anger again, that anger with everything. Anger for him she supposed.

She didn’t know whether to probe about his childhood or not. They were having a deep conversation, so it seemed like a good time, but what if he didn’t want to?

Sanji interrupted her thoughts, unknowingly making the choice for her and swiftly changing the topic. “But it doesn’t matter, we’re back together.” And he beamed at her.

God it was difficult to be at the brunt of his smile up close. Just because she could, she leaned in to peck him on the lips.

But there was a time limit on how seriously Sanji could behave and it was up.

“And can I just say, your breasts look fantastic right now.”

“Pervert!” She exclaimed, shoving him this time and he rolled onto his back from the force. He was lucky that’s all he got.

His arms wrapped around Nami, bringing her into his chest and she hovered above him to look at his face.

But he hadn’t lost the cheeky twinkle in his eyes. “They look good in this position too. Maybe there’s not a position they don’t look good in.”

Nami’s hand pressed over Sanji’s face, pushing it to the side. “Maybe I’ve made a mistake…” She said teasingly.

“No take backs!” Sanji exclaimed and laughed, tightening his arms around her and coaxing her into his chest as he placed a kiss on her cheeks. “This is it, you’re stuck with me, Nami-san.”

“I could think of worse things, Sanji-kun,” Nami said, resting her head against his chest and listening to his heartbeat. Nami hummed, it was soothing, and she could feel herself drifting, nuzzling into his chest to get comfortable. His hands traced up and down her back and she could feel herself melting. Maybe they should have done this sooner, he was so comfortable. “No funny business,” She murmured sleepily.

“I’d rather you be awake for funny business,” Sanji said, leering down at her.

Nami snorted and felt Sanji press a lingering kiss onto the top of her head before she drifted off.

“Nami-san,” A soft voice coaxed, “Nami-san.” There was a soft hand on her shoulder, gently shaking it in an attempt to rouse her.

Stirring, she looked up, bleary eyed into Sanji’s face. It took her a second to remember what was going on but when she did, she asked, “What time is it?”

“Almost three, you should go to bed, you feel cold.”

Reluctantly she agreed, taking a moment to gather herself, she really was comfortable. Sanji was looking at her fondly and she couldn’t help but feel self-conscious for a moment, she really hoped she hadn’t dribbled. She rolled off of him, laying down on her side next to him and contemplated asking Sanji to carry her to her room. She knew he would, he’d do it in a heartbeat, but she was a grown up, not a five-year-old.

Nami sat up, Sanji joining her a moment after. She was about to leave but turned and smiled at Sanji. The night had shaped up pretty well and she gave into the impulse to lean in to kiss him. She briefly wondered if her breath was a bit gross after being asleep but Sanji didn’t seem to mind as he tilted his head to get a better angle.

She was aiming to keep the kiss light and it started out that way. Small pecks and feathery brushes as their lips met, but to hell with it, she enjoyed being a tease after all. She slanted her lips against his and pressed more firmly. Sanji made a noise of surprise in the back of his throat before reciprocating in kind and wrapped an arm around her to press her up against him.

What started sweet was beginning to turn heated as Nami nipped at Sanji’s bottom lip and he groaned as her tongue soothed along his bottom lip. Her stomach twisted when his free hand reached up to cup her face and his tongue tentatively met hers. He soon gained his confidence when she gave a breathy moan and their mouths met in an open mouth kiss. Nami could feel heat pooling in the stomach and although she was outside, it was all too hot.

Things were starting to get out of control. She needed to reign this in before it went too far.

She pulled away, breathing heavily and the hand on Sanji’s chest was now there to stop him from following after her. He looked thoroughly kissed and she imagined she looked the same. She graced him with a few small, lingering kisses.

“Good night Sanji-kun, see you in the morning,” She whispered against his lips.

“Hrrg,” He replied, before coughing and composing himself. The glassy look in his eye didn’t leave though as he nodded. “Good night, Nami-san.”

He leaned in to kiss her again, but she dodged out of the way. Heaving herself up, she winked and gave him coquettish wave over her shoulder as she walked towards her room. They may be together, but she did promise to make him work after his return.

And he was left watching her leave, waving back at her in a stupefied daze. A satisfied smile spread across his face.

---------------------------

I was so close to writing le sexy times. Sanji just forces my hand but I reigned it in, I’d never planned to and for once, I stuck to it. Also, Luffy almost made an appearance, to obviously ruin the mood because everyone loves Sanji suffering at the hands of his Captain… right?

I actually don’t like that scene they included in the anime, where Nami said about ‘working him like a horse’, it was far too cold for me. But I couldn’t resist mentioning it at the end and this is my spin on how she actually meant it.

As always, please forgive spelling errors.

Thanks for reading.

#sanami #sannami #sanjixnami #opfanfic #opwriting #one piece #nami #sanji

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chainedkura · 4 years ago

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My thoughts on: One Piece Heart of Gold

Hello there! This last few days I’ve been watching the movies and related content I had never watched before. The last movie I had seen before this catching up was Strong World like more than 5 years ago. Today I wanted to share my thoughts on the special episode Heart of Gold. Maybe later I’ll talk about the movies or the other movie related sagas or whatever.

I’ll probably spoil some things (I mean the episode is like 4 years old but whatever) You are warned.

Ok, let’s start with the most basic thing. Did I like this special? Kinda. Not my favourite but It’s not horrendously bad.

The Plot:

Heart of Gold has the tipical structure used for One Piece’s movies. We have a misterious protagonist (Olga Myskina) linked to an interesting secret/treasure (Pure Gold) and an antagonist (Mad Treasure) who is trying to use her to get that said treasure/secret. Somehow our protagonist is going to get to know the Mugiwaras, make a bond and get them involved. Pretty standard One Piece Movie/Special Episode plotline.

The thing that distinguishes this episode from others is that (Once they’re already inside Bonbori-sama and the group has separated) It gave a sense of purpose and something to do to the Mugis that are not that inclined to fights. The whole a la Indiana Jones puzzle solving ruins was in my opinion the most entertaining part of the plot. It put to good use the habilities of the Mugis that are usually in the backrow in the Movies. Robin reading the hieroglyphs, Brook playing the piano and Usopp hitting the target with his slingshot. While they tried to apply that same formula to Nami and Chopper, it didn’t worked out for me. It didn’t have to do with any of their unique habilities. It was more like “I guess you can fight a bit and have some strenght” and “I guess you can get electrocuted?”. At least with Nami they had the subplot of her knowing Mad Treasure from her past and the whole “I lost a really important [girl]friend because of you” thingy that is explored in more depth in One Piece Film: Gold.

The problem with this 2 hour long plots is that is not enough time to give each character a specific moment to shine and there’s always at least one that doesn’t do much. This time Franky had that treatment. The only important thing he does in the whole episode is covering the Sunny with scrap metal so it doesn’t melt because of Bonbori-sama’s stomach acids. And even that is all out of camera.

The Antagonists:

Let’s talk about Mad Treasure and his gang. Mad Treasure himself is a meh character to say the least. He doesn’t get really explored, he has no backstory and no redeeming qualities at all. He’s just cruel and shitty for the sake of it. Let me say, I do love his Akuma no Mi though. The Jara Jara no Mi (Chain Chain Fruit) is right up my alley. I love chain controlling powers (As if you couldn’t tell already) and Mad Treasure had some interesting uses of the chains.

Let’s move on onto Naomi Drunk. There’s no much to say about her really. She’s just there, uses her exploding arrows and gets drunk. She’s bassically a punching bag for Zoro.

And last but certainly not least Psycho P. This character is probably the one I have the most to talk about and mainly are not cool stuff.

Let’s start with his power. The Iro Iro no Mi (Color Color Fruit) is like a better version of the Suke Suke no Mi (Clear Clear Fruit) not only allowing himself to become invisible but also making other people and things invisible too or changing their appareance. It’s an interesting and inventive ability, It’s really Oda like. My problem is that whoever wrote this special decided that it would be a good idea to resurface Sanji’s intention to eat some fruit that allow him to become invisible. We all know why. I’m not going to rant about how that is one of the worst moments in all of One Piece that should be completely erradicated from our collective minds, because thousands of people had said it already and way better than me. But I have to point out that they decided to bring it back and used it as a plot point, a really faint one but there nonetheless.

Now let’s talk about Psycho P. himself. In meta analysis he is just no one. He has no agency in the story and is there to be someone who Sanji can beat up. Out of meta, He is another really stereotypical Black character. We all know that One Piece has serious issues when representing diversities and Psycho P. is not an exception. He’s a black dude with big lips, talks like a “rapper”, looks like a street artist. It’s a full on stereotype of a Black person and it’s not cute to see. He’s just that, a stereotype, he has no depth, no story, no nothing.

Silly things and moments:

I wanted to finish this post with some silly things that caught my attention while watching the episode.

Elisabeth and Chavez. They’re really cute dinosaurs and really like them. 10/10 water lizards.

This scene made me really happy. Ussop using Haki just as the other three monsters.

Chopper using his arm point even though we’re post time skip so he doesn’t have that form anymore. That was weird.

#one piece #heart of gold #mugiwara no luffy #mugiwara kaizoku #straw hat pirates #my thoughts on

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whirlybirdwhat · 5 years ago

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East Sea of Monsters - Chapter 20

There’s something hiding in Sunny’s Shadows, and sometimes it feels like Chopper is the only one who doesn’t know what it is.

Can’t believe we are at Chapter Twenty!!!! Think is this the longest multi-chap fic I’ve posted, thank you all so much for the support!!

Read the entire series on Ao3 for better quality and author’s notes, especially warnings for content within the fic!! Tag “Ficart” on my blog should also show some fanart and podfics for this fic, as well as the link to translations! give them some love!

Seeking - Chopper

Chopper’s captain is a selfish monster – this, Chopper knows well, in the way that his Captain has bloody fists and has torn gods with a smile.

He laughs in the dark, for he does not want the dark, and chases away tyrants because they hurt a friend. He welcomes strangers into his crew, women who stir revolutions and men who are all but bone.

He has climbed the cold mountains and stood behind a flag not his own for a small, insignificant reindeer. He is Luffy, who has struck down armies and governments and islands and kingdoms, all to save a friend.

All to get what he wants, and for so long, Chopper has been part of those precious few that Luffy calls crew.

So why, why does it feel like Chopper’s just falling behind? Falling out of reach, out of his stars endless orbit?

People walk aboard the ship at night away from Chopper’s prying eyes and he has to know, he must know what they are keeping from him, why he’s not part of this inner circle

He swore to be a monster for Luffy, and if a monster he must be, he had hoped Luffy would still accept him, for his captain loves him and is a monster too

But that’s not the case.

They are hiding from him, hiding something that they don’t want Chopper to know, and it’s been going on for a while now, perhaps sense the beginning.

(What do you say, he wonders, when it’s been before your very eyes in inhuman instinct and the smell of rotting flesh?)

Why do you hate me now? He wants to ask but can’t because this is his home and if he’s not home here, then he can’t be anywhere else.

Ever.

The truth comes as all thing Straw Hat do, in a moment that passes between things such as sanity and well into the world of something strange.

Typically, it would be wonderful as well.

It’s not.

The New World is harsh in the way that no other place is. Fire rains from the heavens and lighting brightens clear skies. There are pockets of storm and raging seas, all unpredictable, and an aura of danger that sharpens every sense.

(Every color, every scent, every sight and smell and breath and burst of laughter always seem brighter if they might be your last.)

There are also stretches of calm – and this is one of them. Islands move in the New World, or at least the waters do. Weeks and months and days blend together under the blue sky of the Grand Line – every island is a refuge from its harsh waters, but a rare refuge at that.

(They are pirates, of course, they have no home but the sea but occasionally… occasionally a soul must step foot on land to know what blessings the sea has – and what dangers a sailor courts to be welcomed into her embrace.)

Now, there are no islands in sight, and have not been for the past three weeks. The waters are dry in these parts, and normally, Chopper knows, Sanji would not be worried, but there are few fish to supplement their supplies and no enemies crossing their paths.

A crew of nine does not need much to subsist, but their crew consists of people with harsher metabolism’s than most.

There is no danger now, but there will be soon. Chopper knows this, as does Sanji.

(Chopper is merely considering with the welfare of the crew, but there is a deeper worry in Sanji, one that causes him to look towards the back of the meat locker with worry, so much worry, as his special meats supply starts to dwindle down. It’s Luffy favorite.

He doesn’t know why Sanji’s so worried. Luffy can survive a couple days without whatever kind of meat it is…right?

Maybe he should ask.)

(He doesn’t.)

They start rations on week three and a half.

The crew is agreeable, especially with the hard lilt to Sanji’s eyes but –

There’s something more to their movements and how they all get restless. The Straw Hat crew has never faced any adversary with nervousness and unease as a whole, so why, Chopper wonders, are we (they) doing it now?

They cast eyes towards Luffy, who is innocently sucking on a bone from the last meal, and Chopper wonders if this is another thing they are hiding from him.

(C’mon, he wants to scream, I’m your doctor! Trust me! Why can’t you trust me? I grew stronger too! I fought and trained like the rest of you! Why why why? Is it because I’m a monster now?)

Chopper doesn’t say anything, and watches as the crew leaves the galley, Sanji snapping a quick word at Luffy before leaving.

Chopper leaves too, and wonders why the Sunny suddenly feels so cold.

(Where’s the truth that soon to come?)

Chopper, before, before Marineford and training and a Captain so hurt, sensed something from his crew, something that made (makes) his hair stand on end and every animal instinct scream, despite his love for his saviors.

It came from Usopp and Luffy and Zoro and Nami and Sanji, and the way they would smile in the dark or smell or breathe a little too off. But Chopper ignored it, for they were his crew, and trained himself during his two years of training to accept rather than fear.

He can’t help but wonder if they are feeling what he felt (what he feels still), now in regards to him.

It hurts, more than he’d like to admit, especially when (Luffy smiles all jagged edges Usopp seems to bend and twist and scare Nami breaths and smells like ozone Sanji feels like bone and Zoro is lost on The Sunny but winks with two heads at Chopper-) they smile at him like nothing is wrong, and praise him in battle.

He loves this crew, so why, why?

Why doesn’t Luffy accept the monster?

Sunny is different than Merry, though Chopper loves both. Merry was white and young and lovely in the sun (but at night her shadows were never colder and there were always odd splatters on her hull.) Sunny is golden and bold and young too, not like a child (led to slaughter) but like an adventure at its start.

(The shadows in her hull and the splatters on the kitchen floor seem new, in the way that Merry’s weren’t, and of course they are for Sunny was built for them, but Merry… it seemed like there were shadows born onto Merry that they brought to Sunny.)

It is a surprise when Sunny starts feeling like Merry did.

(Like the night when the Doctor died, or nights when Doctorine couldn’t save a patient. The. Air of death and the stench of decay setting in, the sight of bodies, pale and unmoving, and sounds of anguish of those left beyond echoing through the air… Like hallowed grounds, when someone died, like an absence in the earth.

Chopper does not forget nights when all feels lost.

(Men die when they are forgotten, after all.))

Chopper doesn’t know why though, why there is sudden coldness mixed with home.

Because, suddenly, Franky is fashioning some sort of chains with Usopp, mixed with the sea stone they swore they would never use and Nami keeps checking in. Suddenly, Robin has more eyes everywhere, and Zoro’s scent (always tinged with blood) is now spiked with the worry he gets when the crews in danger. Suddenly, Brook is always on deck, playing a calming song and Sanji is giving Luffy more than the rations allotted him to have.

(The ‘special meats’ have run out.)

And Luffy…

(A hint of trepidation haunts the crews every step.)

And Luffy…

(Well. Here the thing- Chopper doesn’t know, because Luffy should be acting lethargic and hungry with the lapse in food but instead he’s tight lipped and unmoving – as if he moves to fast he will jump out of his skin. Luffy is tense and jittery and not meeting anyone’s eyes, so unlike his bold, uncaring self. It hurts, because Chopper wants to help his Captain but he can’t bring himself to move, because what if?

Is that really his captain?

Chopper is not, because his Captain certainly doesn’t have spikes on his skin or blood on his teeth, now, right?)

There’s something in the Shadows, Chopper notices.

Something dark.

(He’s always avoided the shadows before.)

It stalks in the night, slow and comfortable with the shapes of Sunny’s hiding spots. It hesitates, sometimes, when it’s so close that Chopper can feel its breath running down its back, and flees when Chopper turns, so that nothing else Is on deck save for Luffy or another of his crew mates.

Chopper doesn’t feel safe sleeping, not when he can smell the hunger radiating off of it.

He tries to distract himself with his studies, tries to have Robin and Franky distract him too, but it never seems to work. When he suggests a game (Hide n’ Seek, despite his hatred for it before (a fear to override a few)) Luffy and Usopp shake their heads.

(Well. Usopp does. Luffy’s sitting tense and with hands gripped tightly behind his back as he rests near Zoro. If Chopper could see it, he would see Zoro’s hand clenching Luffy’s wrist together, stopping him from clawing at himself or others in nervous habit. A precaution. A warning. A failsafe.)

“Not the best idea right now, aye Chopper? Why don’t you go see if Sanji’s ready for a meal, okay?” Usopp says while Luffy is far too quiet for normal.

(He’s been quiet a lot, recently. Chopper’s worried.)

The reindeer does as Chopper requests, and peeks in on the kitchen.

He has the strangest feeling that the beast is behind him again, the thing that lurks in the shadows, keeping him from sleeping soundly, but when he looks back, all he sees his Luffy shoving his face into Zoro’s shoulder.

It’s nothing… right?

Chopper misses the oddities of when simple games used to unnerve him. He wishes they were back to those times, instead of now, when every step is like waiting for an inevitable tripwire.

Dinner is small. Only a simple meal of pasta and water, with some sparse meatballs on top.

Luffy keeps his hands to himself and doesn’t snag anyone else food. He’s shaking, if anyone looks too closely, and if Chopper himself wasn’t half frightened by the look in Luffy’s eye he’d be ordering Luffy into the infirmary.

As it is, he looks at the way Luffy fidgets and keeps quiet.

Luffy’s just hungry, Chopper assures himself, we all are.

(He’s just scared and Chopper doesn’t know if he’s referring to himself or Luffy.)

After dinner, Luffy’s supposed to take watch but Zoro goes up with him.

(A conversation happens between the two’s eyes, Zoro the only one to get Luffy to meet him and its one Chopper will never be able to decipher, wonders if he even wants to.)

It’s not Luffy that comes back downstairs after watch, but Chopper is too afraid to turn over and look to see if it’s true.

(Hot breath runs down his back, and Chopper remembers that just because he has horns and a fruit it doesn’t mean that reindeer aren’t still prey animals.)

Day ten of rations, day five after the meats in the back of the freezer and run out and Luffy stops shaking.

He stands, in the middle of the deck, and the sun grows cold.

(Whatever Luffy is, he doesn’t fit into his skin, the mist surrounding his essence (a shield for the rest of the world.)

Luffy’s head cocks to the side as he fingers still, and Chopper looks at him, truly for perhaps the first time in a while, and wonder why he has been so blind. In Luffy’s stillness, scratches and startling thinness and dark spots emerge where there once was none.

I failed, Chopper thinks, and doesn’t know why he hasn’t been treating his captain, I failed.

Where did the sun go?

Luffy speaks. “Sanji,” He says, and is voice is like spiders on skin and maggots on corpses – exactly the tone it should be but always, never right. There’s power thrumming through his voice, like an unbridled beast, and Chopper, unwittingly, takes a step back.

“Sanji,” Luffy says, and Sanji steps forward, smoke in his step. “Help.” And Luffy breaks but not in the way Chopper knows – no, in the way that beasts do when they have been pushed too far on a hunt.

(Too long without food, the cold winter blows and all that’s left is red red red red red red death)

Luffy lunges as Sanji does, and then Luffy’s on the ground, held by strong legs and a pair of sea stone cuffs.

(He’s not really fighting now, Chopper knows, because Luffy’s stronger than the seastone they have when he wills it, but beasts don’t have will do they?)

(Chopper does. Luffy does.)

Sanji drags Luffy, so lethargic now, that unsettling restlessness gone until Luffy Is thrown into the Bay 6 of the Soldier Dock System (and how, how has Chopper missed the metal walls and places for hooks along the edges?) where he is cuffed and hooked to the wall.

Sanji gives Luffy a tight hug, hand holding his jaw so carefully away from him, and walks out.

He notices Chopper then, and softens at the horror in Chopper’s eyes.

“Chopper,” He says, and that’s it before he brings him away from their chained, starving Captain and up to the top deck.

As Sanji shuts the door with heavy chains, Chopper catches one last look at Luffy, slumped tiredly to the ground.

It’s not Luffy.

(the shadows…)

In the galley, between Robin and Nami, Chopper listens to a story weaved about a demon sea, and crew mates who hail from it. It’s not the entire thing of course (Chopper swears something is slurring Nami’s words together so that she can’t tell it all) but it’s enough to let the horribleness melt from Choppers bones.

They weren’t keeping secrets from him because they’d thought he was a monster, but because they’d thought he be scared.

And maybe he is, but most of all, he’s angry.

“I COULD HAVE HURT YOU! I DON’T KNOW YOUR PHYSIOLOGY, I COULD HAVE GIVEN YOU SOMETHING, SOME HERB TO HELP WITH SOMETHING AND KILLED YOU!” He screeches, mushrooms flashing through his brain. “I’M YOUR DOCTOR! TRUST ME!”

Nami shushes him, with assurances that they do, of course, but Choppers mind is on the most pressing subject.

Luffy.

Like a trance, he slides from his seat and onto the floor.

Luffy, he thinks, avoiding his crew mates to walk to the infirmary for a few precious materials.

Luffy.

My captain.

Chopper walks to Bay Six.

(Of course, he realizes that Luffy is the presence in the shadows and that his captain was hunting him. But, quite frankly, he doesn’t care to think about what the special meat was or what Luffy might have done had he not restrained himself, he only cares that his captain is hurting and he’s done nothing.)

(Sunny and Merry, floating above him, let their protection fall, and let Chopper see what Luffy asked them to hide. Their captain is hurting, and he must survive for they love him too.)

(The Veil has no mind, but there is laughter, ringing through the air, as a child realizes the monsters were not besides him or in him or under the bed but in his hero, his savior, his captain.

Tis a cruel world, isn’t it?)

Bay Six is dark when Chopper arrives. Dark and scary and so very, very lonely.

(Chopper thinks of two years without crew, and then thinks of Luffy and lets himself have one, single tear.)

When he pushes it open, there is someone waiting for him.

“Luffy,” He breathes out, and instincts hit him like a brick.

There is fear, and then there is terror, and then there is horror. Chopper is well past all these, into something far greater – the kind of emotion that occurs when heroes fall and all that is left is something dark and broken and unnatural.

The emotion prey gets when faced with certain, absolute death.

Before him is something (One who Feast, King of Beast, Demon of Pits and Hell, Hellshaker hell raiser, Voices would scream if Chopper could hear them) that isn’t human. It reeks of death and rotted flesh, a smell Chopper has known before, with blood tinging the scent with its own abhorrence.

All he sees is Luffy, but it’s not him. It can’t be.

“Luffy,” Chopper says again, and this time Luffy looks back. “Let me help you.”

Blood drips from one of Luffy’s cuts onto the ground.

Drip.

“No.” Luffy rasps, and its final, the way he says it, but Chopper can’t help but protest.

“Please! Let me do something, please, Luffy, Captain. You always help us but let me help you! I can do something, anything if you just let me-” Chopper is cut off by the force of a Conquerors Will slamming into him.

KNEEL.

It’s not love he feels, this time, like he usually does when Luffy’s presence washes over him.

This time, it is a heightening of the horror that he already felt, an execution that fells him to his knees, trembling, a force of will that makes him seem small and afraid.

Luffy, he can’t even bring himself to think, because this is his Captain but…

KNEEL.

Before him is teeth and hunger and horns, scars and scales rising with fire and eyes, eyes crawling to stare at Chopper with nothing but a ravenous greed.

It’s a selfish beast, and now it is a hungry beast, but before it was his Captain – it still is his captain.

(The Veil is a presence that which can be torn down by a will greater than the force itself. Conquerors who know it, breath it, live it, treat it as a play thing, a curtain to peel back and forth at will to show the truth. Few know, but all who see believe, and the veil has bowed to few in the past.

Luffy, who is never without the veil even among what some presume to be his kind, can shake the veil like he has torn down governments and islands and war lords.

Ruthlessly, and without mercy.)

KNEEL.

He falls to his knees.

“Chopper,” Luffy says, blood spilling from his mouth and dripping onto the floor, painting it in reds and blacks. “Go.”

Chopper does not want to go, but what can one do when faced with the soul of a conqueror, captain, king in the body of something from the depths?

Chopper leaves, and sobs outside the door because no matter how terrified Chopper is of Luffy, Luffy will always love them. Save them.

Be alone for them.

Chopper loves his Captain, and wonders why he ever thought Luffy wouldn’t like Chopper because he was a monster.

A Marine ship passes by in two days, but not before Luffy howls in his chains and every night is spent silent and huddled in the dark.

(Not before Zoro and Sanji stand guard by the door and knock their captain back every time he gets deranged enough to escape.)

Zoro and Sanji head out and come back with six prisoners. Chopper wonders what they want to do with them, when the Marine lifeboats are right there, but then they walk down to Bay Six and Chopper understands.

He doesn’t want to understand

(The thing about Luffy is that despite everything, despite his selfishness and greed, he will never demand something so significant from them. Only ask.

Join my crew, he will say, and take you anyway, but he will never demand that Chopper not help anyone but himself.

If Chopper truly wished it, he could demand that they let those marines live, in remembrance of an oath he never took. Instead, he helps Robin bring crates of fruit and meat aboard the Sunny, and ignores the screams from below and the blood on deck (Sunny will take care over it before long.)

Luffy would never demand that Chopper become a monster for him, but he does not ask either, and that makes Chopper give himself again and again and again to him.

If the price of his captain's safety, his sanity is perhaps some of Chopper’s morality, well –

He’s a pirate. He sought this out himself.

(It’s not a game, not anymore, and the Straw Hat Flag is the sign of Chopper’s freedom. If he is to deny that, then he is to deny that Straw Hat Luffy will never be the Pirate King and that is a lie.)

Chopper accepts the weight of knowledge and cries himself to sleep.

Luffy is alright soon enough, and they reach an island in another three days. This time, Chopper knows about the blood on Luffy’s lips and doesn’t question it.

(Rumors of men gone missing flutter through his ears at night, women weeping in the dark and children crying because they don’t understand loss.)

(Luffy needs it, Chopper knows, and he will never deny his Captain something so important, no matter how much it strikes blades at his heart and settles poison in his stomach.)

But now…

The beast in the shadows isn’t so terrifying anymore. And when Luffy comes down the ladders from watch, Chopper sleeps tight, knowing his Captain is there, and that Chopper now knows the truth.

His crewmates can sleep easy, heal easy, because Chopper can find dark tomes of demonic medicines to heal his crew and with the power of a conquerors slicing will, he can save them all, three heads or no skin or made of storm instead of bone.

(There’s more to Luffy he knows, even now.)

(Trust us Luffy!)

(His captain doesn’t talk about himself.)

Chopper climbs into Luffy’s arms, the upmost trust in his eyes, and knows that everything is finally okay.

Everyone is here.

Alive, Safe, and sound.

(Luffy would never eat them.)

(Right?)

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frobin · 4 years ago

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astolfobia

hat auf deinen Eintrag geantwortet

“I can totally understand the Jinbe/Robin ship, it does make sense. But...”

>> What... do you mean about not being sure if Zoro reacted correctly or not about Usopp?

Hey hey,

okay this has nothing to do with FRobin and is more about Zoro, Usopp and the crew dynamics but since you asked I decided to answer. And I try to make myself clear because it’s probably VERY, VERY, VERY subjective and also comes from my female and very European point of view.

I read the scene again (in german bc I don’t have the official translation at hand) but I also looked if kaizoku-ni-naru has it translated and here it is: https://kaizokuou-ni-naru.tumblr.com/post/190464807603/thank-you-so-much-for-your-wonderful-blog-im

Also many of it is from memory because of course I’m missing the volumes with the beginning of Water7 More behind the read more:

Let’s do a little recap:

Usopp left the crew. Why? Because to him it seemed like they were leaving Merry behind because the ship wasn’t strong enough anymore.

That might seem weird since Merry is just a ship right? But we know that Merry had a soul, that manifested in the Klabauter. Merry was part of the crew but as soon as she was too weak (Usopp did not know that Merry was beyond repair), as soon as there was something better, Merry was replaced.

That hit Usopp hard because Merry had not only been a present from his friend Kaya but this ship had been with them through so much and who knows how strong the bond between Usopp and the ship had really grown (he had been the one to see the Klabauter and the first to hear Merrys voice) so of course for him it felt like they were abandoning not only a ship, a thing, but a friend and even a crew mate. Now, Usopp has a lot of problems. He feels weak, especially compared to Luffy, Sanji (who is also the cook) and Zoro who are The Monster Trio for a reason. Nami is a Navigator and so essential to the crew. Chopper is a doctor (also essential) and a literal monster!

But all Usopp can do is shoot. He is probably going to be the best sharp-shooter in the world but he is not aware of that. Not back then and not now. Even after all the amazing things Usopp did in the recent arcs, he still considers himself weak.

His self-worth is low and he loathes himself, probably feels like he is worth nothing. The only thing that he is good for is keeping Merry afloat, a memento to his island where he was important. Maybe the only thing that keeps him afloat too.

So, the crew is willing to abandon Merry. Who tells that they won’t abandon him? Right after he lost a part of the money that was supposed to be used for Merry, right after he had to be saved by his crew, because he is weak!

And you can bet that Usopp has abandonment issues too. After all, his father left to have adventures. Usopp lost his mother to sickness when he was still a small child. The village was annoyed by the child that ran every morning along the road to shout “Pirates are coming!”. Not as a threat but because he hoped that it would be true, that his dad would come back for him one day. Instead he grew up alone until he found some kids that thought he was cool enough to be their leader. He somehow managed to befriend the sick girl, and told her lies, like he did for his mother. And then Kaya was willing to renounce, to abandon him for Kuro.

Merry is important and they want to leave Merry - him - behind.

Usopp was afraid, got angry and he attacked Luffy.

Was it smart? No. Was is it understandable? Yes. Could they have handled all that better? Fuck yes!

But they are both teens who are stubborn and hot headed and in a tough and loaded situation. So I understand why it happened.

And Usopp again is beaten, even with his smarts and his knowledge of Luffy’s weaknesses. He could not win. Because he is too weak. He lacks. He is not good enough. Luffy not only destroyed Usopp’s (already beaten) body, but also another part of his self worth.

(I’m not crying you’re crying!)

Then, we all know that Robin was caught, while Usopp fixed himself up and then later met Franky. It was only then that Usopp learned that the ship was beyond repair but also learned that Merry had a Klabauter. And then more shit happened. What we also know is that Usopp had a very, very large role in the rescue of Robin and that he was one of the people who talked sense into her. Without him they wouldn’t have saved Robin and Luffy might have given up. He pep-talked him to continue fighting.

(It’s still you who is crying! Shut up!)

Anyway, let’s get to Zoro telling the rest of the crew that they can only accept Usopp back when he apologizes. Which, let’s be honest, makes sense.

Usopp should apologize. Because he was in the wrong. But his decisions came from a very specific place.

So yeah, Zoro is right. But I get a bad feeling at the whole display of aggression and that Zoro expects Usopp to live up to his (Zoro’s) also very specific views and values of a warrior and the honor associated with it, without caring for Usopp’s. Again, a boy who grew up alone without any role model except that vague idea of an amazing pirate that was sailing the sea.

And the whole “Either it is like I say or I go!” stroke me as especially harsh.

Because I’ve been confronted with that sentiment so often, that I felt that deep in my bones. When I read it first, I didn’t even realise why that scene shook me. But it was that exact sentiment that poisoned my club and ultimately made me leave it, because I gave the ultimatum right back “You will go if things don’t go your way? Then go or I leave!” I’ve been part of that club since I had been seven years old. I left it with 25 because I had more balls than that fucking asshole and I’m still pissed about it, ten years later. And I’m very forgiving.

What Zoro said was that everyone has to know their place or they are no material to be a pirate (which is kind of weird since some people become pirates to be free, if you want to follow and know your place, maybe you should become a Marine). Ultimately you have to know whom to follow and that is - in this case - Luffy and no one else. You have to trust his judgement because he is the captain or else he is not much of a captain.

And again this can make sense because if you don’t trust your captain or know your place on a ship it can be a death sentence at sea.

Then there is this thing that this is ‘no playing pirate’.

We still don’t know all of Luffy’s reasons why he wants to be pirate king but he often hints that he just wants to be free and have fun with his friends. That sounds a lot like ‘playing games’. At that point he only slowly learns that being a pirate is often way more serious and dangerous and filled with tough decisions than he thought. Playing games and have fun, that is why he was so delighted when he heard that Usopp wanted to come back. But playtime is over that is why he agreed with Zoro. Time to grow up they are at war after all.

We know why Usopp left the crew, went against his captain and friend, because Usopp felt like they were abandoning ANOTHER FRIEND.

But whatever reason there MIGHT BE does not matter for Zoro. He even says he does not know why all of it happened, does not care who was wrong or right.

I think that is a dangerous sentiment! Because personally, I feel like it’s important to try to see outside of your own perspective and I think you should never judge before you know all the facts. If you then still come to the same conclusion that is fine and if you come to another that is good too.That is what it means to make an informed decision, because the world is not black and white. Many things have reasons that are so layered that you can’t just expect everyone to come to the same conclusion when they don’t have the same information. That is why communication is important.

Usopp waited for the very last moment to reach out to his friends. The longer he waited the longer he could imagine that everything would be fine in the end. He gave himself to that illusion. Zoro would have never done that and so no one else should do it. He is not exactly empathic. I feel like Zoro can’t look farther than his own ideas.

But I can agree with Zoro to some amount. I understand where he comes from.

Do I like it? Absolutely not.

So, to slowly come to an end, we all know how this went. And I have to give it to Zoro, he also did say “I hear nothing” whenever Usopp tried to handle the situation like nothing had happened. He wanted him back too, after all.

And shit, it worked. Usopp cried out to his friends, he apologized and Luffy reached out to him to reel him in.

But I can’t help but think that it absolutely destroyed Usopp after all. He saw his friends leaving him behind in a foreign city without any support. He just got a bounty and so would get in the focus of the marines, especially them thinking he is still part of the Strawhat crew.

The crew, his friends, would leave him because he is weak and not worth anything and he would have no friends and be alone forever.

I don’t even want to start to imagine the pure despair he felt that moment. And it stayed with him, as we learn in Thriller Bark. And again and again.

So yeah.

It worked in the end but I think it could have been handled better.

Well, that is easy to say as a grown up with some more years under my belt and from an outside perspective. But even back when I first read it, it gave me a strange feeling.

I think at least one of the crew should have talked to Usopp and given him some clues. And I’m sure Franky would have if he knew what was up but he hadn’t been part of the crew. Robin didn’t for whatever reason talk to Usopp, but she also never agreed with Zoro, looked almost angry about it. Nami also didn’t want to go against her captain, I guess. Sanji agreed with Zoro, maybe also with a bad feeling and Chopper is even less experienced than any other of them.

Oda is an amazing storyteller with a lot of characters that have an incredible amount of layers but that does not mean I agree with him all the time and so I don’t agree with his characters all the time.

And that is what I meant. XD Sorry for the long text.

#astolfobia #One Piece #analysis #not frobin #aks #text #long text #Zoro #Usopp #Pirate Hunter Zoro #god usopp #meta #my opinion #kon #personal #the things you read and how you interpret them is always influenced by your own experiences #1900 words #damn

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