Contrapositivity

Welcome!

Here you will find my collected fanfiction as well as a few meta-posts or other fandom-related content. The bulk of said fandom content pertains to One Piece and Metalocalypse, with a few forays into other spaces. If you read something and you enjoy it, a comment would be appreciated but is not necessary.

The vast majority of this work was posted on my LiveJournal of the same name and moved in 2017 once the climate on LJ no longer became tenable. My LJ had also contained various personal ramblings and such so some of the remaining comments on fics do refer to posts or parts of posts that I have eliminated as they referred to personal rather than fannish topics. My apologies for any confusion this may cause.

I also moved over the posts that I could remember and find on various LJ communities such as zosopp and onepieceyaoi100 among others. A few of these works have also been previously cross-posted to Fanfiction.net, AO3, and Adult Fanfiction.net. So you may have seen a few of these posted elsewhere or under different usernames.

A few notes and personal recs below:

( About Spelling/Names, Times, Etc. )

( A word on warnings/ratings )

( Regarding Tags )


( Some of My One Piece Stuff I'd Personally Recommend )


( Other Bits and Bobs of Mine I'd Recommend )

ENJOY!

Volume 7 - The Crap-Geezer

Finally getting back to these after 6 years, lol. Partially due to wanting to reference the manga again before I watch more of the Netflix Live Action adaptation and partly because I felt like it.

I'm torn on the ranking for this volume within East Blue. On the one hand, Pearl is my LEAST FAVORITE character in all of East Blue. He's even more insufferable in the anime, but I find him incredibly stupid and tedious. On the other hand, Sanji's flashback along with all the drama with Gin is remarkably well done and definitely the best flashback thus far (I adore Luffy's flashback with Shanks MORE, but in terms of writing and event sequencing, I think this one's better). The anime also adds a bit more to the initial flashback; I'm recalling some underwater bits specifically, but it's been a while since I actually watched it, so I'm not sure how much that part actually adds.

I don't like the Krieg fight overall, so that is definitely coloring my impression of this volume (and the next one), but I also love Zeff, so it's a hard one to figure out.

I will say that the volume title is very fitting as just about every action in this chapter until the last 2 revolves around Zeff, either directly or indirectly, and how Sanji feels about him, along with Gin's actions in the last 2 chapters and how that relates to his loyalty to Krieg.

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Okay, I was trying to keep things in fanon that irk me off of this journal but this is something that bears saying.

Out of the original 5 Straw Hats, Zoro makes the most sense for First Mate/Vice Captain, whatever. And that is solely because he is willing to make the harsh decisions. Unfortunately, being First Mate most often means being the one to be the 'bad guy' or the 'disciplinarian' and Zoro's the only one willing to do that of the first 5. I think Sanji and Nami can often SEE the reasons why but they don't have the personality to be that person. And Usopp is great at making hard choices about himself but he's not great at seeing/applying them to OTHERS (which is not a bad thing! He's a very good person with a lot of empathy and so it's hard for him to apply shitty consequences to people outside of himself). Of the Grand Line crew, I'd pick Robin as the next best choice, but Robin, in a weird way, is getting the childhood she never had by being a Straw Hat. Just because she COULD do it doesn't mean she'd want to do it or wouldn't hold off making/saying/doing the hard stuff because of the maturity it would inflict on her when she's clearly enjoying NOT having to be that person. Jinbe hasn't technically been welcomed back yet, but at the moment he's the only other person I see as being as equally up to the job as Zoro (he might even be better because he's not as battle-hungry!). But again, I don't know that Jinbe WANTS that job (note: I don't think Zoro does either but it's a role he falls into on the basis of his own values fairly easily) or if he'd ever take it.

As for Chopper, he's Usopp x ten and his position as doctor also means that it would be against his profession to permit harm of any kind to befall others. Franky is like Sanji or Nami. He can SEE what needs to be done but it's not in his nature to push it. His family functioned basically without him even though he was the leader. He did things for himself and let them do things they wanted but it didn't seem like he was a BOSS in the traditional sense. Brook....is complicated. I think Brook, like Robin, could do the job easily. But he, too, is getting a second shot and being that mature person isn't a role he wants to take. And I sometimes question just how sane Brook actually is...he may not be fully competent to be in that position. Too, seeing as he seemed to be Yorki's right hand man, he may not want the position due to his previous relationships.

Anyway, it's not like the Straw Hats HAVE a First Mate/Vice Captain in actuality anyway. But if you look at who makes the tough choices or guides things in Luffy's absence, it's generally Zoro. So...take that for what it's worth I suppose.

Also...boats aren't a democracy. Just because Luffy knows he NEEDS his nakama for their support and their skills, and because he lets them say all kinds of things and yell at him, ultimately he's the one with the final say. The whole point of Water 7 was Usopp (and everyone else, tbh) coming to the realization that Luffy really IS the captain and he has final say. They don't vote on stuff. Everybody says their piece and then Luffy does what he wants. That's how a captain works. Hell, that's how a boss works. Someone has to have the final say. Look, I think both Luffy and Usopp made bad choices in Water 7. They misunderstood each other and they both let their emotions get the better of them. The only time that had happened with nakama in the past was with Zoro on Whiskey Peak, but Zoro is not Usopp and so he dealt with that without letting HIS emotions get away from him. However, this doesn't mean that Usopp gets to have final say about Merry. He never DID. Luffy did. He's the captain, he gets final call.

And by hiding out post-Enies Lobby, it showed that Usopp still hadn't learned that lesson. It took Zoro's ultimatum (which could have been worded better) but making Usopp see that the ship was not a democracy is what had to happen. It sucked. It sucked a lot. But it was important. Luffy's the CAPTAIN and that has to stand for something. And post-time skip we can see that everyone is much more cognizant and celebratory (while also amusingly resigned!) to this fact. Water 7 had to happen and it was a culmination of building events that led to this and it started all the way back in Syrup Village. To misunderstand this is to misunderstand how One Piece works.

Volume 6 – The Oath

This volume is basically a beginning look at Sanji’s characterization as well as a major source of Zoro’s motivation as a character along with a smidgeon of the Nami backstory plot. That is to say, there’s A LOT happening in this volume. The volume title itself is the same as that of chapter 52, which is where Mihawk challenges/promises with Zoro and Zoro in turn makes his vow/oath to Luffy. I want to briefly go on in a bit more detail about their battle before getting back to the overview of the volume.

Here is where we see Zoro’s ‘oath’ to Luffy supplant his promise to Kuina in terms of priority. I hadn’t always viewed it as specifically starting here but given the way Zoro flashes through his various memories and ends on his discussion with Luffy when he originally shared his dream and how much Luffy approved, I now do think it is appropriate to mark this as the turning point. Zoro still wants to keep his promise with Kuina but he also has come to the realization that accomplishing this promise is going to be harder than he initially realized. Even though his dream hasn’t changed, it has to become BIGGER. And the only way he has to do that is by hitching his boat to Luffy, who has the craziest and (by other people’s standards) biggest dream of them all. Zoro’s eyes have been opened, a challenge/invitation has been given, and he can at last see the true scope of what he wants to accomplish along with an acknowledgement of the one who’ll get him there (note that Zoro had already called Luffy captain by this point but it is here where I think the full weight of that sinks in).

Anyway, to get back to the volume itself, what’s really happening is that the true peril of the Grand Line has been revealed and yet all of Luffy’s crewmates (at this point technically just Usopp and Zoro) and he himself are bound and determined to go there and achieve their dreams. Sanji, too, has a dream but it’s been kept hidden from us. The red herring is that he wants to inherit the Baratie but that will be revealed as false in upcoming volumes. We can see that Sanji has his own ‘oath’ of sorts, the allegiance he owes to Zeff and why he refuses to leave despite the abuse heaped upon him. And Zeff and Sanji have an agreement of sorts as well in the matter of feeding those who are hungry. Finally, even though there aren’t any major details, we can see that Nami is trapped and cannot vow yet to go to the Grand Line with Luffy and company even though she desperately wants to.

This is pretty good volume. I’d probably put it as my 4th favorite in East Blue. There’s a LOT of exposition and not as much action or comedy but I love Oda’s world building so that doesn’t bother me. Additionally, I feel like Oda’s art really hits its stride by these chapters and things get really fluid and nice. Finally, as I mentioned in the special notes post earlier, I am NOT delving into the Sanji->Zoro antagonism since I already did that but I AM trying to be charitable and relate what we now know about Sanji’s past to what we see in these chapters and hopefully that comes through in my notes.

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Title: Blueprints
Rating: G
Pairing: None/Gen
Word Count: 540

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Title: Crimson
Rating: G/PG for canon blood and violence
Pairing: None or the faintest smidge of Zosopp
Word Count: 526

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Title: Veracity
Rating: G/PG for canon violence
Pairing: None/Gen
Word Count: 1190

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Title: Integrity
Rating: G
Pairing: None/Gen or the barest hint of ZoSopp
Word Count: 100

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Title: A Boastful, Bossy, Busybody – That’s Our Captain!
Rating: G
Pairing: None/Gen
Word Count: 1,085

( I adore the Usopp Pirate Crew kids! )

Title: Aesthetics Aren’t Everything
Rating: G
Pairing: None/Gen
Word Count: 589
Theme: Darkness/Shadows
Style: Horror (comedy)

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Volume 2 – Buggy the Clown
Best guess on publication year is 2003 actually since the survey at the back has that copyright in it

Overall, the theme of this volume is the Straw Hat Pirates’ definition of treasure versus more traditional pirate definitions of treasure. Volume 1 was about dreams and this is about the ‘treasures’ that will lead to or accompany or signify the accomplishment of dreams. In volume 1 we learned that Zoro’s swords were his treasures. In this volume, Luffy will identify his hat as his treasure. Mayor Boodle will identify the town and its people his treasures. Chou Chou will identify the pet store that had belonged to his deceased owner his treasure. In a small way, Mohji will see Richie as his treasure. Nami does not explicitly identify her treasure, but she says she only loves treasure (money) and mikans (the symbol of her treasure).

Buggy, on the other hand, explicitly defines treasure as gold and jewels. He also expresses an interest in power, stating that wealth can make one a king. I can’t remember if Buggy left Roger’s crew before Raftel or not. If not, this could be some the earliest foreshadowing of the true nature of the One Piece. In keeping with the tie between dreams and treasure, our heroes show that they are willing to fight to protect their treasures as the symbols of their dreams.

( Chapter Notes )

I'm doing a re-read of the whole One Piece series via the English Viz manga editions and taking some notes. There's probably gonna be stuff on Tumblr, too. I took extra notes on Chapter 1 for obvious reasons (Shanks and company). Find them behind the cut.

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