I Haven't Even Updated My Fic In 4 Months 💀

okay, whew. lots of thoughts about how dark one piece can get…

so i've reached the part where hiyori publicly humiliated one of the corrupt individuals in flower city in front of all the people in the brothel for falling into the trap of greed and lust.

and wow

i just. it's so fucking dark. and it's like in your face and it gets under your skin kind of dark. the laughter of the courtesans, kyoshiro mocking and ordering his underlings to beat him up in front of everyone, and hiyori's "i spent it all" laced with no remorse at all… it's just so cruel. and rightfully so tbh, since it was displayed how the man caused so much trouble to innocent people just to fulfill his disgusting fantasy of objectifying hiyori and viewing her as a trophy he can have.

i know that hiyori's identity as komurasaki was for the agenda of bringing down orochi, but a royal ending up as an oiran makes me sick. im not saying this because sex workers disgust me (i dont. but im of the opinion that sex work can be very dangerous and it is such a difficult job. and also it caters to the objectification and commodification of their bodies, which i find to be extremely damaging.), but i find it to be really tragic.

but at the same time, there's no definite answer as to what really happened to hiyori growing up, nor if she slept with men as an oiran at all. it's kind of up in the air for us to decide. i think this is a smart decision on oda's end as a writer.

are we going to interpret it as close to reality, or are we going to use the bounds of fiction and say that hiyori was relatively safe growing up?

i mean, we can say that hiyori did sleep with men as an oiran in exchange for manipulating them to drain all of their money. but we can also say that hiyori just entertained them until they're not of use to her anymore.

idk but to me both scenarios make sense.

it's like with hancock and her sisters. we know that they were abused by celestial dragons, but to what extent? were they physically tortured or did something far more sinister happen to them? also the same with robin's life. she spent most of her life running away from powerful people, and most of them are men. we can never say for sure if she always got away unscathed.

i think oda puts these types of situations in the story to keep younger audiences from digging too much into it while teaching them to be aware of the dangers lurking in the society ー but for us who are older it will really make us think and it kind of serves as a reminder of how scary the world is.

anyway back to hiyori, im of the opinion that she didn't actually sleep with any men, but thinking about all the mind games that she played with them just makes me feel bad for her. i imagine she had to endure so much of that from a young age, all while dealing with the death of her parents and the fall of their empire. it's just too much for a little girl. and now she has to put up a front for the sake of rebellion. it's like all her life, up until the strawhats freeing wano, she never got to truly live as her own person.

it's pretty fucked up. i want to say that there are better ways to write hiyori's character but yeah, i can't really think of one that would have bigger impact than what she was in the story. that scene of her stating her name as a kozuki sends chills down my spine. i honestly don't get how people would just dismiss her as a 'whore' or an 'evil, manipulative cunt who doesn't care about the lives she'll ruin'. as if kaido and orochi weren't the root cause of it all.

i just love how deep the lore can get. there have been so many characters in the story of one piece and im just amazed at how oda can maximize their stories to the fullest potential of the specific arc that they belong to.

truly a work of a genius.

DID AO3 JUST GO DOWN FOR ANYONE ELSE? 😭😭😭

Sooooo...

In one of my last posts I mentioned that I headcanon that Zoro would brag about having sex with two more genders than Sanji.

...

I wrote the fic.

It's got every Mugiwara's (minus Jinbei since he hasn't joined yet in this one) sexual life in it, so it might not be for everyone.

Also, it kind of exists outside of reality since it is post timeskip Strawhats in the situation of pre timeskip where they just fuck around.

Nevertheless, let's get into it!

Chastity Of A Mugiwara

It was a normal lunch for the Strawhat Crew. Shouting, scolding and shoving occurred as Luffy ate as much as he could shovel down his throat while everyone else desperately shielded their own plates, followed by an angry Nami hitting Luffy over the head to stop him from touching any more of her food.

Zoro, having finished his plate, poured himself a fifth cup of sake while assisting Chopper with plate defence. After a few more minutes, the chaos came to a close with Luffy getting off of the table to join Brook outside as he prepared to play a song.

Chopper, sitting down on Zoro's lap, looked intrigued for a few seconds before opening his mouth to talk.

"Zoro, who were those women in the last island? Why were they wearing so little?"

Zoro spat out his sake.

"I don't understand.", Chopper continued, "We've seen them a lot in more populated islands. Is it just a fashion?"

Zoro kept silent for a bit while he thought of what to say next, but Franky spoke up first.

"Oh, them? They're just prostitutes."

The room fell silent, except for the thud of Robin's heavy book hitting the recently cleared table.

Chopper looked around at everyone's awkward faces before opening his mouth to talk once again.

"What's a-"

"A prostitute is a sex worker, Chopper.", Robin interrupted, with a disappointed look on her face aimed at Franky. Chopper immediately reacted by blushing in embarrassment and covering his face before looking up at Zoro, who had covered up his eyes with his left hand.

Chopper stuttered as he began to ask Zoro another question.

"So does that mean that those women yesterday who were... You know, flirting with you wanted to have... sex?"

Zoro groaned as Sanji gritted his teeth, rising up in flames.

"They were doing WHAT?!"

Zoro looked up briefly to see Nami with a mischievous grin staring at him. She smugly asked, "Soooo... What did you do?"

Zoro took another swig of his sake before replying, "Nothing. Sex is boring as fuck."

Everyone in the room stopped to look at him, some confused, most indifferent. Sanji was the first one to shout out, "You've had sex before?"

Before Zoro could reply, Nami intercepted.

"Zoro is handsome, has a good figure and looks like he'd be good in bed, so he gets hit on a lot. Did you not notice that?"

"I LOOK LIKE I'M GOOD IN WHAT?!", Zoro roared out, some heat reaching his ears. He clearly, did not notice.

He sighed before replying in an exasperated tone, "Yes, I have had sex before."

Sanji, now fuming, yelled out, "WHEN?!"

"When I was 18, before I met Luffy, I had sex twice. Didn't really like it, so I haven't had it since."

Sanji ran his now sweaty hands through his hair, stressed.

"Who would want to do that with you?"

Zoro paused, furrowing his eyebrows in thought before making a smug grin.

"Of course you'd want to know, you've obviously never had sex with a woman."

Sanji's face went red with embarrassment. "H-how would you know?"

Zoro smirked. "Oh please, you froth at the mouth and shoot blood out of your nose when a woman gets within a metre of you. You'd die before you even got your clothes off!"

"I-I'm saving myself for marriage!"

"Mhm. You have women throwing themselves at you that you have to save yourself from then, obviously.", Zoro replied back cynically.

Nami, in an attempt to stop the fight, cut in by changing the conversations direction.

"Who actually is a virgin on this ship?"

At that moment, Luffy and Brook re-entered the cabin and immediately asked why it was so quiet.

"I'm wondering who is a virgin on the Sunny. We know that Zoro isn't and that Sanji is, but we're finding out the rest now."

Brook looked up for a second (But he doesn't have eyes! Yohohohohoho!) before replying. "When I was still alive, I did have sex on some islands. Of course, since I am just bones, I won't be able to do anything of that sort anymore."

Chopper replied, clearly embarrassed by the topic, "Well, I haven't done anything.", whilst burying his head into his hooves.

Franky joined in, saying, "I had sex back at Water 7 often. Haven't been super interested in it since then though."

Nami finally answered her own question.

"Luckily, I'm still a virgin. I have teased it and almost did it when I was infiltrating pirate crews in the past, but I managed to get away before actually doing anything. I'm not innocent to sex, but I haven't actually done it."

Robin answered after that in a more mellow tone, "Running away for most of my life meant that I had to do anything to survive, even sex. It wasn't very nice in my experience, but it depends on the situation I assume."

The room fell quiet once again as everyone felt slightly upset by Robin's experiences. Luffy interrupted the silence, clearly not reading the room.

" ... What's sex? "

Robin thought for a suitable definition, and turned to Luffy.

"In this context... Intercourse involving genitalia."

She didn't want to ruin his innocence, but he couldn't be too naive either. She hoped that he would be satisfied with her answer and not pry in any further.

"I still don't understand. What's intercourse? What's gen-it-ail-ee-a?"

Zoro spoke up next. As one of the men Luffy was closest to, they all hoped that what he said would work. Then again, this was Zoro.

"Coition. But, like, more broad. "

Everyone on the crew except for Zoro and Luffy collectively facepalmed and/or groaned.

"Oh, like coitus? I've never had sex then."

Nami, much like the other Mugiwara, wore an expression of dumbfounded disappointment. Somehow, Luffy knew what coitus was and not sex, because of course he did. And clearly, clearly Zoro had full trust that Luffy knew, because who else would have such blind faith in their Captain?

"Usopp's the only one left.", she sighed.

"Do you think I've done anything like that before?", Usopp answered back with a clearly displeased tone.

Zoro replied, "You are clearly in love with that one girl, Kaya, but I don't think you've actually done it before."

"HE-HEY!", Usopp cried out like a small cat as he went red.

"He's not lying.", Nami grinned back. Out of the crew, only Luffy, Zoro, Nami and Usopp met Kaya, so many others were confused. However, most could pick up on the tone and smiled accordingly.

Nami continued, "So Luffy, Usopp, Chopper, Sanji and I are virgins, then."

Zoro sat in thought for a few seconds before commenting, "Actually, we only talked about women when it came to the Ero-Cook."

"What are you suggesting, Marimo!?"

"So you haven't had sex with a guy then? Lame."

The room seemed to go silent a lot in that one conversation.

Sanji replied, stuttering slightly.

"You... You have?"

"Oh, yeah.", Zoro grunted lazily, "On my first time the woman said that I didn't seem interested, so she suggested that I was gay. I tried it with a guy later but he said the same thing and that I might be... Asexual or something."

Robin laughed a little bit before continuing. "That seems quite accurate for you. I've never seen you attracted to anyone, so it wouldn't surprise me."

Zoro shrugged before yawning and getting up, gently placing Chopper back into his chair.

"I'm going to go to the gym for a nap."

As he left all the crew could wonder was 'What on the Grandline even was that conversation? '.

They all mentally decided that they were probably not going to talk about that again anytime soon before returning to their posts and allotted tasks.

_________________________________

Alright, hope that wasn't shit.

Also, I totally imagine that Zoro and Luffy had the weirdest talks before Nami joined, which lead to Luffy knowing what coitus means and not sex.

Eh, I think it's funny.

I TOTALLY FEEL THIS AS AN ARO

I JUST WANT TO SEE THEM KISS AND WATCH CREEPILY IN THE CORNER

being ace is so weird cause when you're watching shows you get a lot of "omfg this person is so hot i want them to kiss me" but you're just here like "omfg this person is so hot i want them to kiss this equally hot person who has chemistry with them"

EXACTLYYYY

I feel like a lot of people really want/wanted Kuina to be Tashigi because they can't accept that all the potential she had was ruined because she had a tragic accident.

What makes Zoro's backstory sad isn't so much the scale of destruction, like on Robin's, but rather how down to Earth it is, as Kuina tripped, fell and probably broke her neck in a bad landing. It's that simple, and it serves as a good contrast to the larger scale backstories.

Today I was showing my nephew the second episode of OPLA with Usopp, and we've got to the scene when Zoro was trying to get out of the well, while thinking about Kuina. My nephew complained about how in anime Kuina died in an accident which he found lame, and I started to think about it deeper.

I came to conclusion that Kuina's fairly normal death via tripping accident is meant to be doubly tragic. She didn't just die young in a stupid, easily avoidable accident, while having such grand plans as becoming the greatest warrior ever; she didn't even die in combat. All of this happens some time after Zoro and Kuina promised each other that one of them will become The Greatest Swordsman in the World, so Kuina's ordinary accident feels like a cruel twist of fate. She didn't even die a warrior's death; she just tripped.

i like in the earlier episodes (specifically on syrup island) when zoro has his bandana on and he just

On my ao3, someone just commented that they can't wait for the next part of a fic when I know DAMN well that I haven't uploaded on it for the last year and that I have no plans to.

I honestly feel so bad.

Not bad enough to continue writing it, though.

I was just rereading Found Among The Strays, found this artwork linked and DAMN. It's honestly heartbreaking 😭

Read it if you haven't already btw

“Did it work?”

Found Among The Strays