ALRIGHT WELL......... SINCE I WAS ENCOURAGED, LET’S TALK ABOUT NAMI + HER PROSTHETIC ARM. warning for self harm, death, + abuse.
in case anyone is unfamiliar with the scene, here it is. big warning as she stabs herself in the arm several times.
for context behind this scene since i know a lot of my mutuals aren’t into o/p, the short of it is - when nami was young, her island was overtaken by a group of pirates called the arlong pirates, named after their leader. arlong demanded every islander pay a fee to live, but nami’s mother, belle-mere, only had enough for nami and her sister, nojiko. bellemere was shot point-blank for being unable to pay for herself. but that wasn’t the end of it for nami.
arlong ransacked the house and noticed that nami had a knack for drawing maps. he needed a cartographer - and she, at ten years old, was a prodigy in the making. so arlong forced her to join his crew, branding her left shoulder with his emblem. nami made the deal with him that if she could raise 100,000,000 beli, the world currency, he would free the island.
eight years later she had it. she had stolen and pillaged from enough pirates that she’d made the money . . . but arlong wasn’t going to let go of her that easily. he made a deal with the local marines to split her hard-earned treasure if they came and confiscated it - so he wouldn’t lose his precious cartographer. and nami could do nothing to stand up to him, because she had no proof of what he’d done.
combining that with several other stressors, nami was essentially so fed up with arlong that she repeatedly stabbed herself in the arm, right where his emblem was tattooed on her. it really, really fucked up her arm. she’d destroyed the muscle, most of the skin and nerves were disconnected and damaged, and even the bone was cracked. it was unsalvageable with the medicinal practices of the island, and it would be too much of a hassle to care for while she was off at sea - so what other option was there ?
when chopper joined the crew, he and usopp were able to fashion a prototype. it was crude, high maintenance, it broke a lot - but it was something. she’s spent many nights in usopp’s workshop, half-asleep while he repaired it and tested new designs. he even painted on a design she’d doodled of a pinwheel and her mother’s tangerine . . . and it was a huge part of why they’re so close now.
nami doesn’t actually get her current prosthetic until they meet franky. he was incredibly impressed with usopp’s ability to come up with a prototype, and he took usopp’s research, chopper’s guidance, and his skill to make what she has now. it’s still being tweaked and improved upon to this day - and of course, after seeing the pinwheel design painted painstakingly on every iteration of the prosthetic in usopp’s workshop, franky simply carved it into the metal.