Zoro holds Wado Ichimonji just once, that afternoon, naked on the shore and with Kuina’s watchful, nonjudgmental eyes on the way the white handle and scabbard paint the skin of his webbing milky white, purple with blood held inside.
Kuina brings him a bamboo sword then, one that’s scratchy against his palms, but he uses it because she uses one as well, and together they practice, dressed in matching outfits because Kuina brought him her old uniform and Zoro is still small enough to fit in it.
That fact doesn’t mean anything to him at first. But then he slowly starts to understand. There will always be predators bigger than you, he remembers, and there will always be predators bigger than them.
WC: 5,660
GREET ME WITH A KISS
Sanzo
Return to Sabaody Archipelago
Friends with benefits
Love confession
Getting together
Ftm trans Zoro
Rating: mature
Zoro walks with confidence in his step and holds his head high. The cut of his jaw and cheekbones catches light, dappled with seawater. The image of him from two years ago in Sanji’s mind overlaps with reality, and falls into line, but there is no mistaking it – Zoro is stronger now, and the knowledge both ties Sanji’s stomach in knots and makes him giddy with near delight.
They’ve all changed, and on Zoro it shows, but Sanji knows that if he were to cup his face in the dark, he would still know it’s Zoro.
WC: 2,598
THE MORTIFYING ORDEAL
Sanzo
Ftm trans Zoro
Modern AU
Meet ugly
Fluff and humor
Rating: mature
“The string on my tampon snapped,” Zoro tells him, sullenly. “And I can’t get it out.”
Sanji blinks. He takes stock of Zoro’s bloody hand, then takes a quick peek between his legs again, like he can’t help it, before adverting his gaze to the ceiling. His face is red, the stain spreading down his neck in either embarrassment or fluster.
“I see,” he says.
AKA
Love thy neighbor and help thy roommate to take out their tampon. Maybe fall in love a little bit.
WC: 7,166
SOMNUS
Sanzo
Ftm trans Zoro
Consensual somnophilia
Oral sex
Vaginal fingering
Mentioned fisting
“I mean, what does it matter if I’m asleep?”
Sanji almost drops the knife he’s washing. “Huh? I–what–it’s–” he stammers, blinking. “I can’t just fuck you while you’re unconscious,” he hisses in the end.
“Why not?” Zoro frowns.
WC: 3,858
SACRIFICIAL LAMB
Lulawlu
Romanticized cannibalism
Vaguely religious symbolism and imagery
Dreams
Gen or pre-slash
Someone laughs up on the deck, loud enough that it carries, but Law closes his eyes, letting the noise wash over him.
The next time he opens them, Luffy is sitting cross-legged across from him, smiling serenely.
“There you are, Torao!” He says, rocking on his rear. “Can you rest now?”
Law’s mouth feels cotton candy sticky, like there are gauze rolls stuffed underneath his tongue.
His gaze travels up, over the tan, toned legs, to the trim waist, to the supple chest, and across broad shoulders to settle on Zoro and his scowling expression. He’s holding onto the doorway one-handed with a white-knuckled grip, his other hand clutching at the strapless neckline that’s fighting for its life, trying to keep his chest from spilling out.
He’s wearing a bunny bodysuit.
Sanji’s eyes drift back to his plunging cleavage. For no particular reason, really.
WC: 5,077
(STUFFED) WITH LOVE
Sanzo
Consensual somnophilia
Vaginal fisting
Ftm trans Zoro
Rating: explicit
“How do you feel about fisting?”
Zoro stared at him, blinked, and shrugged. “I don’t feel any type of way about it. Why?”
Sanji had cut into the carrots with more force than necessary, saying, “I wanna try that. With you.” Because when negotiating, you can’t show weakness or uncertainty.
one piece fic | zoro & usopp | 11 Days of Zoro challenge
{STORIES}
Usopp has spent most of his life telling stories. Some true, most not, usually to hide his own fears and failings, but occasionally just to entertain. It’s this last way that Usopp actually enjoys telling stories the most, because it doesn’t leave the bitter taste of lies lingering on his tongue; only a happy warmth inside his heart, the satisfaction of a tale well told.
Of course, before he joined up with the Straw Hat Pirates, Usopp didn’t have very many people to tell those kinds of stories to, because lies spill from nervous lips far more easily; and once someone knows you for a liar, they don’t usually want to listen to anything else you might have to say. There was his mother, who always listened with a sweet, patient indulgence, enjoying herself less for the story itself than she was for love of the person telling it. Then his little gang of Usopp’s Pirates, who listened with all the enraptured wonder of children that still believe in things like magic and fairy tales. And finally there was Kaya; old enough to know the lie of the fantastical, but listening because she wanted to believe in it anyway, if only for a little while.
One of the first things that Usopp ever notices about Demon of the East Blue, Pirate Hunter Roronoa Zoro (that has nothing to do with his mean grin or hulking muscles or almost perpetual frown, at least) is this: he listens to Usopp’s stories in exactly the same way Kaya did.
Which is rather surprising, if Usopp is being perfectly honest—because who on earth would have pegged the big, scary, muscleheaded swordsman as the kind of guy who’d like a good story? But Zoro is always up and alert whenever Usopp starts his tales even if he’d been napping only moments before, he makes the same kind of mild yet deeply intrigued expressions Kaya used to when she was really getting invested, and perhaps most surprisingly, he remembers enough about the stories to ask questions about them later. Questions like: what happened to the little girl whose grandmother got eaten by a wolf? Did the halfling who went on his adventure with those gnomes and the witch ever return home? And what about all those runaways from Alwaysland who were following Pietro Panini?
“Well, they’re the Runaway Children,” Usopp says when Zoro asks him this last question, on a lazy afternoon spent shelling fresh fava beans for Sanji out on the Merry’s deck, the warm sun on a slow descent towards the distant horizon. “Obviously they all eventually go home with Wendolyn.”
Zoro’s brow furrows as he runs his thumb through a large bean pod, spilling its contents into the ever growing pile at his feet. “How is it obvious?” he asks, and Usopp blinks.
“Um… Because that’s what happens in Pietro Panini?”
“Who’s Pietro Panini?” Zoro asks, and Usopp can’t help but stare.
“Uh, you know. Pietro Panini. Like, the children’s book?”
“Never heard of it,” Zoro responds with a shrug, and now Usopp is just confused.
“Come on man, everyone’s heard of Pietro Panini,” he says, laughing because he doesn’t know what else to do in the face of uncertainty except lie, and there’s simply no lie to be told at present. “Or were you too busy whacking things with swords as a kid to bother with books?”
Usopp grins at Zoro playfully to let the swordsman know that he’s joking, but Zoro doesn’t smile back, gaze focused intently down on his beans. “I can’t read,” he says instead, with the same kind of banality one uses to comment on the weather. “So no, not really.”
Now Usopp’s really confused. “You… totally can though?” he replies, squinting at Zoro like it might help him see into his mind so Usopp can figure out what the hell he’s talking about. “Remember when you got your first bounty poster and you kept reading all the details out loud for like a week, just to piss Sanji off?”
Zoro’s mouth twitches. “Oh yeah. That was fun,” he chuckles, running his thumb through another large pod, the beans spilling out with a soft plop-plop-plop into the pile below. “I can’t really do books, though. Not unless I want to give myself a massive headache.”
“Uh… huh,” Usopp says, more perplexed than ever. “And reading books gives you a headache because you… have too many muscles…?”
At that, Zoro barks out a laugh. “Because I’m dyslexic,” he says with a sharp, somewhat wolf-ish grin, and at Usopp’s sudden wide-eyed choking opts to add, “Sorry, I keep forgetting to tell you guys because everyone in the village back home knew.”
“Oh, no, that’s—that’s totally fine, man, I just—you know I didn’t—I mean that’s—” The urge to lie sits right upon the tip of Usopp’s tongue, ready to save himself from the awful embarrassment of never having realized Zoro is apparently dyslexic by touting accolades he doesn’t have, even though Usopp knows—he knows—that’s objectively a terrible thing to do. But luckily Zoro must sense an episode of his ‘about to stick my whole ass foot into my mouth’ disease coming on, because he cuts in before Usopp can make a fool of himself.
“But yeah, I never really read any books as a kid. So I’ve never heard of Pietro Panini or the Runaway Children or any of that stuff before.”
Usopp feels his head start to spin as it tries to comprehend this terrible vacuum of knowledge in Zoro’s childhood. “What about The Burlap Bunny?” he asks, his own pile of beans forgotten as Zoro continues shelling. “Surely you’ve heard of that?”
“Nope.”
”The Tiger, the Wizard, and the Pantry?”
“Nuh uh.”
“Caroline and the Caramel Mill? The Merry Mauve Minotaur? The Fabulous Mr. Ferret?”
Zoro squints at him out of the corner of his eye. “Did you just make all of those up?” he asks, and Usopp laughs because he has no idea what else to do.
“Damn,” he says, hardly able to believe it. “Those were like, my favorite books ever when I was a kid. You’ve really never heard of any of them?”
“Not a one,” Zoro confirms with a small shrug, and for once in his life, Usopp is left entirely speechless.
Usopp has spent most of his life telling stories, because stories have always been a refuge for him, a way to spin safety and comfort out of nothing but words and imagination—and if not for all the wonderful books he read as a child, he’d never be able to build his own as well as he does now. Every tale told was a new world, a new chance to explore and find another spot to hide away in, to tuck into his pocket and bring out on for himself when needed. Usopp has been a knight and a wizard and a prince, traveled across lands unknown and seas uncharted, wrestled giants and tamed unicorns and slain dragons—all because he heard of such things in a story once, and now he can take those same well worn threads and weave them into something entirely new. And to think that Zoro has never gotten to explore such incredible and endless possibilities like that simply because he has trouble reading is…
Kind of sad.
“Would you like me to read them to you sometime?” Usopp’s mouth blurts out before his brain can catch up.
Zoro blinks.
“Read them… to me?” he repeats. The slightest touch of disbelief colors his tone, and Usopp’s not sure if it’s because Zoro thinks the idea is stupid or fantastic, but it doesn’t really matter; his tongue is already off and running.
“Y-yeah! I’m great at reading to people. Why, back home I used to read to practically everyone! I won the ‘Top Volunteer Reader’ at the Syrup Village Nursing Home three years in a row, and our local library used to beg me to come read to the children on Fridays—the orphans loved it, they always told me it was the highlight of their week!”
Zoro raises one sharp eyebrow. “Orphans?” he repeats, and Usopp almost kicks himself for such a stupidly transparent falsehood until he sees the slight upward turn at the corner of Zoro’s mouth.
“Uh… yeah! Yeah I mean, they’d all been adopted by the time you guys came, of course. By a… By a rich dowager! Who couldn’t have any children of her own but had such a big heart that she came and gave all the orphans a home in her giant empty mansion. It was very touching.”
The turn stretches into a full on curve, one of those rare Zoro smiles that doesn’t make him look like he’s a shark who just caught the scent of fresh blood. “Of course. Those lucky orphans.”
“Haha, yeah! Yeah, very lucky.” Usopp coughs, clearing his throat awkwardly before he turns back to the bucket of bean pods still sitting between them. He’s just reaching for the next one when Zoro asks—
“Did the orphans have a… favorite?”
Usopp blinks, and then turns slowly to look at Zoro. The swordsman isn’t looking back, gaze fixed downwards as he shells yet another pod, but the smile is still on his face and Usopp thinks he might even be able to see a hint of pink beneath the golden bronze of his cheeks.
Wow. Who would have thought Demon of the East Blue, Pirate Hunter Roronoa Zoro could blush?
“Um, yeah,” Usopp answers after a moment. “Yeah they did. ‘Niles and the Enormous Nectarine’. That one’s a classic.”
Zoro glances at him briefly before going back to the beans. “Then you can read that one to me sometime,” he says, voice quiet, almost shy.
And there’s no lie on Usopp’s tongue when he replies, “Awesome! Can’t wait!”
Our Baroque Works agents have been hard at work on their missions and it's finally time to show you what they've been up to! We’ll be posting previews leading up to and during preorders!
Our first preview is from one of our amazing writers, @the-four-blue! ✨
I really hated this girl in my class and we kept exchanging notes with various threats of violence on them but then on a Zoom call I saw that she kept a bunch of them pinned on her wall with little hearts around them and I got the biggest crush on her after that.
It is December 29th and now that I've posted my Secret Santa 2024 fic, I wanted to do a retrospective on all I wrote this year.
Outside of fanfiction, this year was pretty hard for me. I had a study abroad and experienced the most isolation I've ever felt in my life. Despite my efforts, I failed to make a single friend and that shook me to the core. Making the decision to delete discord friends or phone numbers after months of ghosting was abolutely brutalizing. I graduated and found myself at the end of the college experience without anything to show for it. I joined discords to make friends through fandom and burned out on that. But even if these outreaches didn't have the outcomes I hoped for, I did make some writing friends and beta'd for some amazing writers. I even got a gift fic from an author I deeply respect. If you got @'ed in this post, I just want to thank you for your part in my writing journey this year!
Statistics
I have a hard time praising myself but I am PROUD OF MYSELF for how much I wrote this year! It's so rewarding to look back on a year and actually feel that. These statistics all come from my Archive of Our Own's User Statistics page, so if you are curious about your own, thats where to find them!
Here's all the numbers:
112k Words?! I'm so proud of myself! That's a novel and some change! My all-time word count since 2016 is 252k, so for me? 112k is a lot!
Thank you to everyone who subscribed to me, my works, to those who gave kudos, to those who commented, and of course, those of you who read my work! I really appreciate it!
These were my top 5 fics, 4 of which are One Piece, the rare Conflicted being Dungeon Meshi. I started/updated 18 fics for 6 fandoms this year, but it's no surprise OP is the one with the biggest showing here; 13/18 are One Piece! Other fandoms included Darkest Dungeon, Baldur's Gate (shouts out to @heph for inspiring this fic with this art), The Stormlight Archives, and Hunter x Hunter.
Works
I'll only be covering One Piece bc this already is such a long post lol. Assume everything is for mature audiences...
(May)
Take Me to Your Heart
(ZS) One of my favorites from this year. The episodic nature of this fic was really satisfying to write, and as much as I write it for the smut, the slice of life contents are almost more satisfying!
~
(Jun)
It Was Simple, It Was Sweetness for AgnesClementine (@the-four-blue )
This was a great oneshot with room for a sequel! I love ZSZ because there are a thousand ways to interpret these characters, their sexual dynamic, and their romantic feelings for one another! Both characters have queer and queerphobic undertones that I could dig into all day.
~
(Aug)
Our Child
(ZS) This is a fic I really love the concept for, because I personally am not a huge fan of Mpreg and prefer to explore more realistic means of child acquisition (this isn't discluding trans experiences I just think the exploration of surrogate births is way more interesting than Zoro or Sanji being pregnant, personally!)
~
(Sep)
Welcome to the Family (update, Ch.2)
(Sanji / Charlottes) Chapter 1 came out in 2019 and then I never updated it. LOL. But Chapter 2 was fun to write and maybe in another 5 years I'll give it a Chapter 3!
~
(Oct)
A Broken Promise (Illustrated by A)
(ZS*) waaah. this one is crazy haha. I need to get back to it but honestly it's draining, and I don't think it would be right to give it anything but a bad ending, which is even more draining! still, I'm happy with how it has been received.
~
Trick or Treat
(ZS) This was a single-sitting write up, and I really like how it turned out.
~
Let's Pretend
(Sanlaw) While not a ship I typically explore, I liked exploring their dynamic just a bit. I think the themes were very fitting for October, haha. I originally wrote this in 2019 I believe, but finally polished it and posted it this year.
~
(Nov)
Shark Infested Waters
(Crossguild + Shanks) This fic is so much fun to write! I want to come back to it, I have a lot of ideas for Crocodile, Mihawk, Daz Bones and Doffy ;)
~
Rest on the Sea Bed, Little Fish (with Illustration by @little-lucky-angel)
(Gen, Zoro & Strawhats) This was a long-term project (ZSZ Big Bang) and a huge challenge for me! I wanted to challenge myself to write something Gen, and while it's gen in the romantic sense the contents are pretty heavy, so I wouldn't necessarily say i succeeded HAHA. It remains unfinished but I'd love to get back to it soon.
~
Being With You
(Frobin) This fic was part of a smut week I unfortunately didn't finish, and I have ideas for future chapters. However, I got distracted by how freaking cute Frobin are!!!
~
No One is Happy (inspired by @abilusanji's Raise a Glass to Freedom)
(Garp x Pudding) This fic was a FEVER DREAM. I read Abbi's fic and fell in love, and then my A Broken Promise brain kicked in, I guess. Don't read this one unless you really wanna set it down and stare at a wall for an hour, I won't be offended XD
~
(Dec)
Bells Come in Pairs for February_Blossoms (@snowlynxdraws)
(ZS) My last fic for the year! Some nice fluff was a good refresher after some of the crazy from this year. I challenged myself to try and write an island that had as much nonsensicality to it as canon islands; I don't know that I succeeded, but as long as snowlynx enjoyed it I'm happy!
~
If you read this, I appreciate you. If you read my fics, I look forward to writing for you in the next year. Here's to 2025!
Your wordcount for this year is so impressive! I know we haven't spoken a ton, but you're an insanely talented writer and I feel really proud of how well you did this year and how productive you've been! You've put out so many incredible fics and I'm personally looking forward to catching up on them and reading anything else you write! I hope you have a wonderful 2025!
So excited to finally share my Enmity: ZSZ bang artwork created for @fivedayslater's beautifully written Prince/Knight AU fic Right Here All Along.
Check it out for some tasty characterization, exciting plotting, and of course, heart-wrenching pining!
