@galaxyfish I've thought about Tashigi's place in this, and I do think that in my version, I'd want to keep her mostly the same, as in she wouldn't be some other person who's a Zoro clone. Tashigi is super underutilized in canon one piece imo, and I think that this AU might allow her to be a bit more central (she could've been anyways if Oda handled it better but smh). I think that my version of adult Kuina would be a very different person from Tashigi, and they could play off of each other/challenge each other quite well? My Kuina has, at this point in her life, kind of disregarded other people's opinions about her gender because she's realized that she's here and she's alive and she can't give up before she even gets to try. If men are right about her, then she'll know that if/when she fails, but until then, she's not going to let anyone tell her what she can and cannot do. I imagine that, when someone insults her on the basis of her gender, she kind of defiantly grins in the way Zoro does in canon when he is doubted? (I will say though that I do think that being treated differently/doubted matters to her a lot when it comes from someone she actually respects. So it's not as though she's completely disregarding her gender as a factor in this AU) But yeah, ultimately, Kuina would operate completely outside of the established system and would avoid bending to suit others' will. Tashigi is... not like that, really. She tries her best to become a female swordsman within the system, as a marine. She's also much more defensive of her position as a female swordsman, for which I don't think she could be blamed at all, but it is dissimilar to how Kuina would react. The two of them would function kind of as mirror images with different mindsets, I think.
I like to imagine that the Loguetown swords shop encounter would go similarly to canon, but with Tashigi being even more enthused to meet Kuina, as she would be "another female swordsman." When she learns that Kuina is a pirate, I think the perceived betrayal would then be even more personal. She would be so much more disappointed that Kuina wasn't "on her side," and I think she would channel that into anger, similarly to how she did Zoro, but there would be more of a sense of pain and despair about having to try and take Kuina's swords from her. It still would be her dream to do so, but it would also feel like tearing down one of the only other female swordsmen she's met who is as passionate about it as she is. She would be a lot more conflicted than in canon, I think, and their relationship could develop accordingly.
I'm still considering things, though, and this is only my first pass 🤔 I want to continue to think about it in the background for a while because I love Kuina so much haha
Also Kuina/Nami yuri is a fascinating concept! You have enlightened me. I do want to come up with what her relationships with individual crew members would be like, because I think it could be so interesting, but I haven't gotten super far yet. I've thought most about her and Sanji's so far, as I think that one would be the most different to how it is in canon, but there are some nuances in general that would shift stuff around with the rest of them too. I'm also still grappling with just how similar I actually want my Kuina to be to canon Zoro, as I do think they would end up in a very similar place and have a similar mindset, but it feels a bit like an easy out to just give her his mannerisms too, and I don't want to do that. The problem is that there's not a ton of canon material to base her personality on, so it can be kind of tricky to figure out how she would change as a person as she grew up/as a result of Zoro's death. I kind of don't want to just make shit up but that's sort of the only option lmao
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