one piece meta

what if the one piece is a neverending dorayaki that can feed everyone for all eternity and never goes bad • created by @freshcreamdorayaki to compile meta posts for my reference • previously @freshopmeta

[onepiecedorayaki]

Tagging System

Spoilers: one piece spoilers

Arcs: romance dawn, orange town, syrup village, baratie, arlong park, loguetown, drum kingdom, alabasta, skypiea, water 7, enies lobby, post enies lobby, thriller bark, impel down, marineford, punk hazard, dressrosa, whole cake island, wano country, egghead

Characters:

Straw Hats: luffy, zoro, nami, usopp, sanji, chopper, robin, franky, brook, jimbei

Families: ace, sabo, kuina, bellemere, judge, reiju, jaguar d. saul, iceburg

Friends: vivi, bon clay, law, ivankov, don chinjao, pedro, pudding, bonney

Enemies: buggy, crocodile, lucci, moria, kuma, doflamingo, big mom, orochi

Marines: smoker, tashigi

Others: mother carmel

Groups/ships: straw hats, lunami, zolu, zosan, lusopp, sanuso, usonami, asl brothers, germa 66, lawlu, rogerray, romance dawn trio, coward trio, revolutionary army, heart pirates

Subjects: parallels, roles, symbolism

Themes: sacrifice, suicidal tendencies, abusive parents, dreams, sexism, asking for help, depression, insecurities, parents, queer, trauma, chivalry, cowardice, racism, found family, gender, government, politics, trust, parental sins

Last chapter read: 1179

[dumbass-writer]

I really think portgas d rouge or as i like to call my close personal friend rouge - doesn’t get NEARLY as much credit bc we all know one piece logic is bullshit but like this badass woman held off ace’s labor for 2 YEARS to protect him and out of all for the insane shit that happens in one piece i fear the fact that nobody gives her the kudos for that is my biggest gripe

[escape-the-game-itself]

Another fun thing about Luffy being the perfect pirate king is how he keeps turning people into pirates

Like almost half of his crew were people who straight up hated pirates at some point and he still convinced them

And not just his crew but a whole bunch of the grand fleet weren't pirates before being inspired by Luffy

Not to mention all the non-pirate allies he has

I genuinely can't think of anyone who has inspired more people to become pirates than Luffy, other than Roger himself

[perfectlyimperfectcharacterfan]

Apparently I'm in the "I could overanalyze most panels Portgas D. Ace appears in" mood. Anyways.

Obviously Ace's reaction here or lack thereof, to hearing he's about to die within minutes, is in line with his earlier decision to "stop fighting".

He leaves his life in the hands of his family but also accepts his own death should it happen. And I feel like that's not just in the context of the war.

Ace's at times impulsive and reckless reactions are very much tied at least in part to his near inexistent self-worth. He doesn't value his own life because he's been told it had no value. Luffy told him he wanted him to live, and Ace accepted it because it came from Luffy, because Luffy needed him. Not because Ace himself thought he deserved it.

And when joining the Whitebeard pirates, Ace found a place where he could eventually live for himself. Even though his self-worth was still near inexistent, he did (eventually) start consider living for himself instead of solely for Luffy (and against Roger whom he wanted to outshine to escape the dark legacy he left behind for Ace). But he still didn't live for himself because he wanted to (he was getting there) but because he owed Whitebeard a "hundred debts of gratitude" for sparing his life as many times.

Ace wouldn't seek death because of his promises to Luffy and Sabo, but he was shown not to escape potentially mortal situations when he had the chance to. Because of his oath to never run away, but also because while he wasn't actively suicidal, he was definitely passively so.

That's in parts why he is so accepting of his imminent death (at that point in the manga). At that point he is ready to die if it happens. But he also places all the trust he has in his family. Because there's nothing else he can do. And because his life isn't his own in his eyes. Until chapter 568 that is, where he expressed he wanted to live.

[thatcoolneighbor]

the funniest comparison between sir crocodile and captain hook will always be that hook’s character was based off of ahab, who lost his leg to moby dick and became obsessed with revenge.

and then sir crocodile who lost his hand to whitebeard, who’s ship is named the moby dick…

[rejectedbard]

when i say 'goth family' i don't mean a nuclear family dynamic. i mean zoro and perona are spiritually cousins who only see each other once a year and without fail get into petty arguments and/or pranking wars ending with borderline dangerous retaliation. suddenly they're older and realize they'd commit bonafide crimes for one another.

mihawk in the dynamic is the equivalent of a VERY estranged uncle at a funeral who happens to be the only one in the parking lot when zoro/perona's car battery dies so he (reluctantly) helps jump their car, and when that doesn't work lets them use his AAA, and when a tow's not available tells them they can stay at his place.

and suddenly, somehow mihawk is the only Real Adult in their lives who they know will answer the phone if they get arrested (well. with some reliability, if it's them) AND has the means to bail them out.

[sanjisapron]

I’m curious there’s not more meta around comparing Chiffon and Sanji, the two characters in WCI that we see be physically and emotionally abused — in part due to their relationships with the identical sibling(s) — who later went on to find families who love them and would fight for them even when they attempt to sacrifice themselves to save them

Also both of them having a dad out there who did care for them, who wasn’t there when they were abused, but who tried their best to save them when it mattered most

And something something Chiffon having the moment with Nami where she confesses about her families ongoing abuse and how she’s found a home with Bege’s crew being a sort of narrative proxy for Sanji telling the strawhats what he’s been enduring. They did find out about someone’s abuse, but not Sanji’s — but then they do witness Sanji’s talk with Judge later so they do have some strings to draw on there

[escape-the-game-itself]

(Warning for salt)

Look, we all know Oda has issues with gender essentialism and especially with writing female fighters, I've literally complained about that latter point at length myself

But I'm getting really tired of the fandom massively over-exaggerating the problem and in the process also dismissing any arc for a female character that isn't about fighting or being a strong independent woman or whatever

And also ignoring all the female characters who don't look like "Oda-women"

Just recently I saw someone say that Chiffon is a bland character because apparently she's got nothing going on aside from being a mother and a wife, which... I can tell you didn't pay ANY attention to her AT ALL

Chiffon is such an underrated character, I swear to god. She's someone who suffered in silence for so long, who was used as the scapegoat for her twin sister but never resented the sister for it, who survived as best she could, who learned to love the man she was forced to marry because he's a genuinely good husband and actually worthy of her love, who chose his side against her own abusive mother, who continues to look out for her sisters and is ready to risk her life for their sake, who is not a fighter in the physical sense but who is doing what she can to contribute to the fight in her own ways.

And other than Robin's mother, I think she's the only sympathetic mother character who's shown leaving her child behind to go do what needs to be done, even though it might lead to not being there for the child anymore. We see fathers in One Piece do that all the time, but mostly mothers just die. Chiffon not only does it, has her husband fully and happily accept taking over fulltime childcare duties while she's away, and she returns alive. And at no point does the narrative shame her for it either, because she isn't defined by her roles as just a mother and a wife, actually, she's allowed to have other priorities. In fact I would argue that her roles as mother and wife are actually only minor points in her story in comparison to her story of surviving abuse and her relationships with her sisters. It's just that people look at a character who is both and wife and a mother and that's suddenly all they can see of her, unless she gets to punch people ig

I also love that as much as Lola is the rebellious one and the one who seems to be a fighter and who is the captain of her own crew, and as much as Chiffon was the quiet one, Lola is so sweet and so idealistic and naive while Chiffon is cynical and ruthless. It's a fun contrast. And yet they both share a deep commitment for their loved ones and an unshakeable sense of honour. And they both get to be very cool about it

And I love that Lola chose to fight for her right to marry for love while Chiffon found love in a political marriage, and both are treated as valid and neither is shamed for their approach

They're so good, they're such good characters. But people dismiss them and I can't help but suspect that it's because they have the nerve to be unattractive while being women

And then the same people complain about how Oda draws all the women the same.... MAYBE HE WOULDN'T DO IT THAT MUCH IF PEOPLE DIDN'T MAKE IT CLEAR THAT THAT'S WHAT THEY PREFER

I mean yeah I can blame Oda for caving to the pressure to make the women appealing and I'm sure he also has a bias in that direction himself, but it really doesn't help that the fandom, including the ones who make themselves out to be all holier than thou about Oda's sexism, just completely dismiss the female characters who aren't drawn to be conventionally attractive. And especially so if they are also very feminine like Chiffon

That one's not on Oda, that's on you

[arocknrollswindler]

I love how Ace tried so hard not to resemble his father only to end up haunting the narrative in the exactly same way Roger does. I’d argue that no other character in one piece haunts the story quite like them. the government did a wicked work not only by killing father and son in the same way but also by tying them together for eternity as a distant memory that uncontrollably permeates the narrative. Ace simply never stood a chance. he was Roger’s son from birth, to childhood, to adulthood, in death and even after that. 💔

[parentscomputer-official]

one piece has this lovely underlying message about how searching for a happy life IS in direct conflict with oppressive systems and when it comes to blow, you MUST fight for yourself, your dreams, and your loved ones. whimsy and joy are acts of resistance, freedom and peace are things you must be prepared to fight for, and you cannot live without being involved in politics.

and now this is rather hard to glean at times, because oda is a icky fucking misogynist and anime culture is inherently sexist and disgusting.

[trellanyx]

Something I think a lot of people forget about Mihawk is that he’s a very efficient fighter. This seems contradictory given how extra he is with everything else, but Oda explicitly tells us this as far back as Baratie.

That’s not just a look into his character, it’s a clue about his fighting style too, which his subsequent fights support.

I know Marineford is a contentious moment re Mihawk’s strength, since by his own admission he doesn’t plan to hold back against Luffy, but then barely does anything when clashing with him, Croc, Vista, etc.

For the record I hate “fraudhawk” discourse, I think it’s a gross misunderstanding of canon and annoying to boot, but I also don’t think it’s quite true that Mihawk held back at Marineford either. It 100% was NOT close to his full power, of course… but that’s the whole point. Mihawk never starts fights at full or even half strength, even the ones he’s taking seriously enough to forego Kogatana for.

He doesn’t bother to engage in fights that don’t interest him unless forced. He doesn’t use Yoru when Kogatana will do, unless it’s a sign of respect like his first fight with Zoro. He doesn’t use named attacks when simpler moves will get the job done.

He doesn’t use canons to hunt rabbits.

So he’s not holding back at Marineford, but rather approaching his opponents with that same slow build of effort. If you’re fighting Mihawk, YOU have to prove you’re worth HIS time. Even in war.

He tests his opponents with these basic moves to see if expending any more energy is even necessary. It’s just that there was so much shit going on at Marineford, so none of his match ups actually lasted long enough to move past that point.

Remember that Mihawk is a very private person. He plays his cards very close to his chest, and doesn’t give anything - not a word, not a gesture, not even a passing glance - more than he feels obligated to. It’s entirely IC that this would extend to his fighting, too.

[kaimu-mu]

Has this been done yet

[lucalicocat]

you can tell luffys a great captain for the straw hats cause hes emotionally strong-arming them into not commiting group suicide constantly

[burningbee]

Have you ever struggled to relate to 'relatable' characters, especially the ones your gender is supposed to relate to, and then you finally find one and he's a weird little freak and you have to dissect your own brain to figure out why he's hitting so hard?

Anyway I wrote a whole comic about Cyborg Franky.

[opbackgrounds]

There's an interesting parallel between Luffy's second visit to Amazon Lily and his first. When he wakes up after the war Luffy very understandably is quite self-destructive. There's a part of him that's in denial even as he realizes that his brother is dead

It was much the same way after Sabaody. Luffy never thought his crew was dead, but he was reckless to the point of self-harm even as he berated himself for not being strong enough to save his friends. The post-Sabaody chapters are much more humorous, with Luffy getting high on laughing mushrooms and being on the receiving end of an accidental hand job, but Oda set up a pattern of behavior for how Luffy deals with loss and grief.

This is something Oda does quite frequently--he sets up a character trait or problem in a way that initially is very funny, only to pull the rug out from under the reader and play it for serious later on.

[eroguron0nsense]

Doflamingo, Love, and Arrested Development

This is mostly just me paraphrasing other Doffy metas and comments I've made but I kinda feel like the real tragedy behind Doflamingo's warped psychology kind of gets missed by people who focus more on his trauma in and of itself and get lost in discourses about having sympathy for characters despite their complete lack of morality and disregard for everyone (perfectly possible), or whether Doflamingo has any redeeming characteristics or genuine concern for anyone or anything outside of himself (he doesn't).

Doffy's story is fundamentally a tragedy, but not because of his childhood traumas or how drastic and painful they are; plenty of One Piece characters experience severe abuses or incomprehensible loss, but they're ultimately stories of how to find hope in the face of the incomprehensibly traumatic, or the salvation/redemptive power of love. Even characters who don't necessarily see their goals fulfilled (see Fisher Tiger, Pedro, Ashura Doji, EGGHEAD SPOILERS etc) aren't fundamentally tragic ones in the way that, say, Ace is, in that they die having fulfilled their goals to the best of their ability and knowing that people will carry on where they left off, even if they don't get to see the liberation they hoped for. Rosinante's story isn't a tragedy because he dies satisfied that he's given hope to someone he loves deeply (and to some extent tried to make amends for some of the guilt he clearly feels for participating in an institution that ruined that child's life).

Doffy, on the other hand, is a never-ending downward spiral from day 1. He was indoctrinated by evil people from birth and never has it addressed (his parents, for all their talk about living more simply than the Celestial Dragons, NEVER actually say "slavery is bad" to Doffy when he asks them why they don't own people any more and I have my own theory on why), who then suffers unbelievable trauma and has his sense of loss–both of his "birthright" and his innocence/ childhood–weaponized for evil. And he spends the rest of his life in this semi-permanent state of arrested development and violent entitlement. He can't have the station and privilege of the Celestial Dragons to... own slaves and live in luxury, so he builds a kingdom where HE reigns supreme and everyone who crosses him is killed or enslaved as a toy. His mother dies and he kills his father, so he assembles a cult-like "family" to try and compensate for the one he's lost/destroyed, but he doesn't and likely doesn't know how to love them in any meaningful way beyond being possessive of them and seeing them as extensions of himself (e.g. he's willing to kill anyone who makes fun of Pica because no one's allowed to antagonize his "family", but he also orders Monet to do a suicide bombing in Punk Hazard, and he's willing to sacrifice one of them for the eternal life surgery, etc). I think that might be why, even though he should know Corazon has every reason to hate and fear him, he's still so eager to take his brother in when they reunite as adults–he shouldn't trust him, and he eventually comes to suspect him of treason, but he's desperate to have a family and Corazon is emblematic of something he wants but can never have because he's a cruel stunted person who knows nothing but entitlement and violence and cannot process the idea that anything has value or merits selflessness and sacrifice.

Everything Doflamingo does is defined by trying to replace or compensate for the family and privilege he was "supposed" to have, but he doesn't love anyone or even understand how real love works because he's been taught to have no regard for human life and all he knows is that love = absolute servitude, that his interests are ultimately more important than the wellbeing of his "family" members, and that betrayal means death. And far be it from me to sympathize with a fallen aristocrat's deranged revenge power fantasies, but it does demonstrate how oppressive institutions inevitably deprive their own beneficiaries of some of their humanity, and consequently fuck them for life. Doffy craves genuine affection and has had his capacity for it permanently stunted by his former class station and indoctrination.

This craving for love combined with an inability to actually feel it in any meaningful way factors into why he's so obsessed with Law, who he kept hardcore projecting onto in the flashbacks and who he expected to turn out just like him. His brother chose Law over Doflamingo and even his undercover mission out of love, and for all his traumas and hangups, Law can find his own crew and friends who he cares about, and he's able to live on and find meaning even after losing EVERYTHING because Corazon genuinely loved him enough to die protecting him. Doffy, on the other hand, is doomed to a loveless, misanthropic, cruel existence where he tortures countless people to compensate, but he can't replace what he's lost and he'll never find it. It's not what Corazon would have wanted, but Law fighting for and honouring Corazon's memory in everything he does enrages Doffy, who will never be able to understand why they cared for each other so deeply, and why both of them are integral to his downfall.

[eroguron0nsense]

Doffy and Corazon's Parents

I feel like I'm the only person I've seen who interprets the Donquixote parents –specifically Homing– the way I do? Most people can pick up on the fact that he's well-intentioned and loves his wife and children enough to lay down his life trying to protect Doffy and Cora, and I've seen a decent number of people also note that he fails as a parent to properly address Doffy's sadism/aggression/antisocial behaviour and Celestial-Dragon-Programming in ways that would actually help him live a healthy, normal life after the family left Mariejois. He's sheltered and lives in a bubble (quite literally considering that leaving Mariejois involves taking off the insulating helmet that keeps you from breathing the same air as ordinary people) and he's horrified at the prospect that the people he idealizes and wants to be like hold genuine spite towards the Celestial Dragons in ways that he can't just hope to avoid by telling the victims of his former peers that he's left all of that behind.

That being said though, I noticed while rewatching Dressrossa that as much as Homing talks about the "honesty" of living as a human and the hollowness of Celestial Dragon society, he never seems to grasp that his peers are *evil*. He thinks of their immense wealth and privilege and the city of Mariejois itself as superficial, and clearly views his peers as misguided and shallow, but he never seems to explicitly condemn the actual atrocities they regularly commit or address it in his home; even though he thinks of himself as morally superior to his peers for choosing a comparatively less opulent and less abusive lifestyle, he doesn't seem genuinely bothered by Doffy repeatedly, loudly expressing his desire to own slaves as they're unpacking. He never bothers to tell his children that his peers are wrong, and the language he uses to condemn his peers excess never actually addresses their cruelty, just his general distaste for their excess and opulence. He doesn't do anything to intervene or apologize when Doffy expresses the same views in public in front of the very people he ostensibly idealizes enough to want to be like. He announces his status right off the bat and allows his child to loudly call for the deaths of people who cross his path without ever apologizing or expressing anything beyond mild discomfort. Even when he leaves Mariejois, he's given much nicer lodgings than most of his neighbours and a decent amount of money and treasure to boot and doesn't seem to want for anything.

Essentially, the outlook Donquixote Homing holds towards humans isn't so much genuine disillusionment with the class he was born into as it is something akin to poverty tourists or orientalist expats who think they're morally superior to and more in tune with the locals than their peers. The subaltern humans exist to him mostly as an aestheticized ideal before they register as people with complex emotions and severe traumas that his peers inflict on them for shits and giggles. He doesn't even seem to register the depths of the harm that people like him have inflicted enough to even fathom that these quaint little people he used to hold power over truly hate and fear them until it's far too late to protect himself or his family.