#'Oh you mean 'pirate husbands' like Shanks & Benn or Roger & Rayleigh?'

[gildedmuse]

So, most the One Piece fans in my life have been discussing the live action series, and, surprisingly, most with a hopeful tone. Which is great because, seriously, I'm too old and close to death to deal with either of the following preemptive attitudes:

"Look, I know trailer footage is not only often unfinished but not even always what gets included in the final project but based purely off the smallest of moments contained in this purely commercialized content, I can definitely state with absolutely no doubt that due to minor detail, the whole thing sucks"

"This will be just like I imagined it including all the changes I would make to canon that have never once been hinged at by those in charge, I just know it's going to be not just as awesome as I have created in my mind but even betyeyr and there is absolutely no way they'd ever make the slightest change that would somehow immediately ruin the entire property retroactively for me!"

The fact that most the people I interactive with are taking a positive but grounded attitude instead of determinedly antagonist or unhinged optimism is just... Nice. Really, really nice.

Most our discussions regard general aesthetic and what we think these creative choices indicate for the show, but there has been one area where 95% of all feedback has been glowly positive, and that is the actors. Seriously, every sneak peak trailer reveal brings about more fan-gushing from the bleachers (related note, this means that any characters we haven't seen gets more and more nails bitten short. Like, why haven't I seen the Benn Beckman? This is actually really important to me.)

This has lead to a lot of excitement for potential future cast members, including from the boys at my work. Which.... They are definitely fans, there is no denying that, but like... I don't think of as "those kinds of fans" .

But I'm always happy to be proven wrong.

AnimeDub Fan Coworker: I've never seen a more perfect live action adaptation than Mihawk in the trailer. The word. The eyes. The facial hair. Like damn.

Manga/Anime Fan Coworker: The cast looks so fucking on. I know this will never get a season 2, but if it did, the absolute dream would be for Jamie Lee Curtis to play Kureha.

Me: Yes, please. She's on my list of Characters I Have To See In Live Action. It's Law (obviously), Kid & Killer but particularly Killer, Ace of course, Robin because ROBIN, and Kureha who, yeah, is on the list cuz I want JLC or equivalent.

AD Fan: You just went off about how Garp was too hot but are cool with Jamie Lee Curtis as Kureha?

Me: Yeah, because unlike Garp, Kureha is canonically smoking.

AD Fan: Agree to disagree.

M/A Fan: They'll probably go for no names again like they did for this cast, but dream casting would be Alexandra Daddario as Robin. Boom.

M/A Fan: *With absolutely no further promoting from me* Ooooooh I got another fake casting. This one's for Kid. Cameron Monaghan.

M/A Fan: He's played crazy before too. And he's really good at it. He was pretty much "the Joker" in the show Gotham. AND he was the gay brother on Shameless. So he can totally be pirate married to Killer!

Me: *Desperately trying to remember when I mentioned in my work chat - that includes a few non-geeks, like not just not OP fans but just straight up not up with geek culture - that Kid and Killer were Pirate Married, a phrase which is very much so mine.*

Me: *Decides it doesn't matter and just gives self a point to converting yet another normal fan straight boy around to the correct view of Kid and Killer's relationship.* Now we just need someone who can pull off the perfect 80 glam rock star AND NHL defense player and we have two more Supernoves cast and ready to go.

I don't know how I keep convincing these straight boys who have probably never read a fanfic in their lives to get behind Kid/Killer as canonical Pirate Husbands, but when one of the major considerations for fan-casting is, "would Mina find him suitable gay with Killer?" you know you've won. I'm not sure what exactly, but it's definitely a win.