currently sobbing over fictional characters

it's the city of water and we see how water is life, they use it for everything, it runs the elevators and enables their transportation and allows the sea train, but every year Aqua Laguna sweeps over the town and the seas creep higher and water is also death and destruction, and this TOO is Iceburg and Franky, foremost sons of the city of water, two humans abandoned and raised by a fishman and a mermaid--who in their own turn chose to live on land. i am SHAKING it in my teeth. the mayor who united the seven shipbuilding companies, and the biggest gang leader in the city.

i’m sure we’re taller in another dimension

my take on an au where kuina never died because i love her, video under cut!

Like, there’s two main points to it. Kuina was the strongest person Zoro knew, the only person he couldn’t beat. She was invincible to him, a goal he needed to reach and he wanted her right there besides him in order to reach it. So for her to die so easily and so mundanely was a shattering of that perspective of her- it’s ironic in the worst ways possible.

And also, the cards were stacked against Kuina from the beginning. She believes as she grows she will become weaker, and by all accounts she was proven right. Misogyny killed Kuina and ended her dreams just before they began. Anyone can easily look at her death and mock her existence, “of course any weak little girl would die falling down the stairs. Women are helpless in this world, frail and unable to do anything right.”

Also having the person who will become the greatest swordsman be someone who fights with skill rather than physical strength! Because a lot of the time I feel like Zoro is like 90% physical strength and 10% haki or whatever the cutting steel thing was about, and it's kinda boring? I mean he has really cool moments but often I feel like he's really underwhelming because so much of his training is just Get Stronk

And imagine Mihawk meeting Kuina and recognising not only the strength of her ambition but also the fact that she fights more like him (subtle, more skill than force), that would have been a way more convincing scene for me. For me Mihawk diverting the bullet with the tiniest movement is what makes him impressive, not cutting a big thing in half with his big sword.

I'm not gonna lie, I kinda feel like if I was Mihawk, I would have been like "okay yeah this guy is very ambitious and has the soul of a warrior, but fucking hell he's like all physical power and one-sword-good-three-swords-better, he's not a serious opponent"

And imagine how Kuina would feel after that fight, seeing that the greatest swordsman in the world fights with skill rather than physical strength? Which means that she doesn't have to be the strongest guy ever to be the best swordmaster!

(I know Zoro obviously has skill too, that's undeniable, but it's really not the thing that gets emphasised about him)

I wouldn't even mind if Kuina was genuinely more vulnerable and physically weaker, and did have to rely on her sword skills even more so than Zoro, and had to fight more defensively because she can't just take massive damage and keep going the way Zoro can. That would be fine. She could still become the best. Become the swordmaster who will never get hit.

The one thing I'll give to Zoro is that he is probably funnier than Kuina would be, because he's such a goofy dumbass. And I do appreciate a goofy dumbass. (Although Kuina could also be a goofy dumbass, who knows maybe she also has the worst sense of direction in history)

(Plus imagine the shenanigans you could get out of her and Tashigi being identical, AND they could be such good narrative foils for each other)

But yeah, it always bugs me, because that backstory feels so meaningful and yet the conclusion just doesn't work because in the end the narrative still implies that a woman can't be the best swordmaster in the world.