#not really but they seemed very pro that ship

[awesomechocolatesauce]

It's so wild seeing people call Ben an "abuser" and feeling disgusted that a show would romanticize him.

Like... that's an extreme take. I feel like they've skipped quite a few steps to get to that point.

It's like "GAH! A flawed character! Let's burn them at the stake!"

I know it must suck that the ship you wanted didn't end up together, but damn! Calm down!

[pro-sipper]

What do proshippers generally believe about shipping real people? Stuff like creator x creator or celebrity x reader?

That it falls under the umbrella of "you should be allowed to write anything you want". Once again, it's not my personal thing. There's no real life pairing I read for, and the whole "blank x reader" is not appealing to me at all.

But I have no problem with people writing that stuff, or knowing it's out there. I saw someone a while back say that it's basically just writing about another character, and I agree with that. No matter how much a creator posts or how open a celebrity seems with their personal life, we're still only seeing a tiny snippet of their lives. We have no clue who they are when the cameras aren't recording because we just don't know them. And whatever someone chooses to write about is mostly stemming from that particular persona that they happen to put on for the world and that's it. It's completely separate from our reality because they're basically just writing about another made up character

The problem I have, and it's what I imagine most proshippers also take issue with, is when people start blurring the lines between fiction and reality. To me, there's a world of difference between posting something on ao3, and speculating on secret relationships in the comments of someone's youtube video. Or between talking about something on tumblr, and tagging the person directly on twitter.

I just don't understand people who condemn rpf and talk about how gross and invasive it is, but think it's funny to tag celebrities on twitter to bring up (what they think is) cringe-worthy fanfic tropes that people have written them into. Or people who print out fanworks to shove into an actor's face at a meet and greet and ask them what they think about it. That's where the lines get crossed, to me.

I think ao3 and tumblr still have an air of mysticism to them. A little secrecy, a little privacy. In the sense that someone in the public eye would have to put in a little work to find this stuff for themselves. They'd have to go to the site and search themselves up to find anything. As opposed to just about anyone in the world being able to force this content in their line of sight with a simple @ on a site like twitter.

So to me the problem isn't that this content exists. The problem is when people don't know how to keep fandom stuff private. Write all the rpf you want but remember at the end of the day these are real people, not your blorbos. You don't know them. It's inappropriate to say these things to them personally (which yes, also includes tagging them on twitter or in the comments of their videos). But it's also inappropriate to run up to them with other people's content just to say "look what these FREAKS wrote about you!!" And I think people either forget or just genuinely don't care about the latter.

[outeremissary]

I believe this is the news article being referred to in this post- I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't read it already. It should be required reading for anyone who has contact with any form of online discourse.

In retrospect, four years later, I feel like the Isabel Fall incident was just the biggest ignored cautionary tale modern fandom spaces have ever had. Yes, it wasn't limited to fandom, it was also a professional author/booktok type argument, but it had a lot of crossover.

Stop me if you've heard this one before: a writer, whether fan or pro, publishes a work. If one were to judge a book by its cover, something we are all taught in Kindergarten shouldn't happen but has a way of occurring regardless, one might find that there was something that seemed deeply problematic about this work. Maybe the title or summary alluded to something Wrong happening, or maybe the tags indicated there was problematic kinks or relationships. And that meant the story was Bad. So, a group of people takes to the Twittersphere to inform everyone who will listen why the work, and therefore the author, are Bad. The author, receiving an avalanche of abuse and harassment, deactivates their account, and checks into a mental health facility for monitoring for suicidal ideation. They never return to their writing space, and the harassers get a slap on the wrist (if that- usually they get praise and high-fives all around) and start waiting for their next victim to transgress.

Sounds awful familiar, doesn't it?

Isabel Fall's case, though, was even more extreme for many reasons. See, she made the terrible mistake of using a transphobic meme as the genesis to actually explore issues of gender identity.

More specifically, she used the phrase "I sexually identify as an attack helicopter" to examine how marginalized identities, when they become more accepted, become nothing more than a tool for the military-industrial complex to rebrand itself as a more personable and inclusive atrocity; a chance to pursue praise for bombing brown children while being progressive, because queer people, too, can help blow up brown children now! It also contained an examination of identity and how queerness is intrinsic to a person, etc.

But... well, if harassers ever bothered to read the things they critique, we wouldn't be here, would we? So instead, they called Isabel a transphobic monster for the title alone, even starting a misinformation campaign to claim she was, in fact, a cis male nazi using a fake identity to psyop the queer community.

A few days later, after days of horrific abuse and harassment, Isabel requested that Clarkesworld magazine pull the story. She checked in to a psych ward with suicidal thoughts. That wasn't all, though; the harassment was so bad that she was forced to out herself as trans to defend against the claims.

Only... we know this type of person, the fandom harassers, don't we? You know where this is going. Outing herself did nothing to stop the harassment. No one was willing to read the book, much less examine how her sexuality and gender might have influenced her when writing it.

So some time later, Isabel deleted her social media. She is still alive, but "Isabel Fall" is not- because the harassment was so bad that Isabel detransitioned/closeted herself, too traumatized to continue living her authentic life.

Supposed trans allies were so outraged at a fictional portrayal of transness, written by a trans woman, that they harassed a real life trans woman into detransitioning.

It's heartbreakingly familiar, isn't it? Many of us in fandom communities have been in Isabel's shoes, even if the outcome wasn't so extreme (or in some cases, when it truly was). Most especially, many of us, as marginalized writers speaking from our own experiences in some way, have found that others did not enjoy our framework for examining these things, and hurt us, members of those identities, in defense of "the community" as a nebulous undefined entity.

There's a quote that was posted in a news writeup about the whole saga that was published a year after the fact. The quote is:

The delineation between paranoid and reparative readings originated in 1995, with influential critic Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. A paranoid reading focuses on what’s wrong or problematic about a work of art. A reparative reading seeks out what might be nourishing or healing in a work of art, even if the work is flawed. Importantly, a reparative reading also tends to consider what might be nourishing or healing in a work of art for someone who isn’t the reader. This kind of nuance gets completely worn away on Twitter, home of paranoid readings. “[You might tweet], ‘Well, they didn’t discuss X, Y, or Z, so that’s bad!’ Or, ‘They didn’t’ — in this case — ‘discuss transness in a way that felt like what I feel about transness, therefore it is bad.’ That flattens everything into this very individual, very hostile way of reading,” Mandelo says. “Part of reparative reading is trying to think about how a story cannot do everything. Nothing can do everything. If you’re reading every text, fiction, or criticism looking for it to tick a bunch of boxes — like if it represents X, Y, and Z appropriately to my definitions of appropriate, and if it’s missing any of those things, it’s not good — you’re not really seeing the close focus that it has on something else.”

A paranoid reading describes perfectly what fandom culture has become in the modern times. It is why "proship", once simply a word for common sense "don't engage with what you don't like, and don't harass people who create it either" philosophies, has become the boogeyman of fandom, a bad and dangerous word. The days of reparative readings, where you would look for things you enjoyed, are all but dead. Fiction is rarely a chance to feel joy; it's an excuse to get angry, to vitriolically attack those different from oneself while surrounded with those who are the same as oneself. It's an excuse to form in-groups and out-groups that must necessarily be in a constant state of conflict, lest it come across like This side is accepting That side's faults. In other words, fandom has become the exact sort of space as the nonfandom spaces it used to seek to define itself against.

It's not about joy. It's not about resonance with plot or characters. It's about hate. It's about finding fault. If they can't find any in the story, they will, rest assured, create it by instigating fan wars- dividing fandom into factions and mercilessly attacking the other.

And that's if they even went so far as to read the work they're critiquing. The ones they don't bother to read, as you saw above, fare even worse. If an AO3 writer tagged an abuser/victim ship, it's bad, it's fetishism, even if the story is about how the victim escapes. If a trans writer uses the title "I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter" to find a framework to dissect rainbow-washing the military-industrial complex, it's unforgivable. It's a cesspool of kneejerk reactions, moralizing discomfort, treating good/evil as dichotomous categories that can never be escaped, and using that complex as an excuse to heap harassment on people who "deserve it." Because once you are Bad, there is no action against you that is too Bad for you to deserve.

Isabel Fall's story follows this so step-by-step that it's like a textbook case study on modern fandom behavior.

Isabel Fall wrote a short story with an inflammatory title, with a genesis in transphobic mockery, in the hopes of turning it into a genuine treatise on the intersection of gender and sexuality and the military-industrial complex. But because audiences are unprepared for the idea of inflammatory rhetoric as a tool to force discomfort to then force deeper introspection... they zeroed in on the discomfort. "I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter"- the title phrase, not the work- made them uncomfortable. We no longer teach people how to handle discomfort; we live in a world of euphemism and glossing over, a world where people can't even type out the words "kill" and rape", instead substituting "unalive" and "grape." We don't deal with uncomfortable feelings anymore; we censor them, we transform them, we sanitize them. When you are unable to process discomfort, when you are never given self-soothing tools, your only possible conclusion is that anything Uncomfortable must be Bad, and the creator must either be censored too, or attacked into conformity so that you never again experience the horrors of being Uncomfortable.

So the masses took to Twitter, outraged. They were Uncomfortable, and that de facto meant that they had been Wronged. Because the content was related to trans identity issues, that became the accusation; it was transphobic, inherently. It couldn't be a critique of bigger and more fluid systems than gender identity alone; it was a slight against trans people. And no amount of explanations would change their minds now, because they had already been aggrieved and made to feel Uncomfortable.

Isabel Fall was now a Bad Person, and we all know what fandom spaces do to Bad People. Bad People, because they are Bad, will always be deserving of suicide bait and namecalling and threatening. Once a person is Bad, there is no way to ever become Good again. Not by refuting the accusations (because the accusations are now self-evident facts; "there is a callout thread against them" is its own tautological proof that wrongdoing has happened regardless of the veracity of the claims in the callout) and not by apologizing and changing, because if you apologize and admit you did the Bad thing, you are still Bad, and no matter what you do in future, you were once Bad and that needs to be brought up every time you are mentioned. If you are bad, you can NEVER be more than what you were at your worst (in their definition) moment. Your are now ontologically evil, and there is no action taken against you that can be immoral.

So Isabel was doomed, naturally. It didn't matter that she outed herself to explain that she personally had lived the experience of a trans woman and could speak with authority on the atrocity of rainbow-washing the military industrial complex as a proaganda tool to capture progressives. None of it mattered. She had written a work with an Uncomfortable phrase for a title, the readers were Uncomfortable, and someone had to pay for it.

And that's the key; pay for it. Punishment. Revenge. It's never about correcting behavior. Restorative justice is not in this group's vocabulary. You will, incidentally, never find one of these folks have a stance against the death penalty; if you did Bad as a verb, you are Bad as an intrinsic, inescapable adjective, and what can you do to incorrigible people but kill them to save the Normal people? This is the same principle, on a smaller scale, that underscores their fandom activities; if a Bad fan writes Bad fiction, they are a Bad person, and their fandom persona needs to die to save Normal fans the pain of feeling Uncomfortable.

And that's what happened to Isabel Fall. The person who wrote the short story is very much alive, but the pseudonym of Isabel Fall, the identity, the lived experiences coming together in concert with imagination to form a speculative work to critique deeply problematic sociopolitical structures? That is dead. Isabel Fall will never write again, even if by some miracle the person who once used the name does. Even if she ever decides to restart her transition, she will be permanently scarred by this experience, and will never again be able to share her experience with us as a way to grow our own empathy and challenge our understanding of the world. In spirit, but not body, fandom spaces murdered Isabel Fall.

And that's... fandom, anymore. That's just what is done, routinely and without question, to Bad people. Good people are Good, so they don't make mistakes, and they never go too far when dealing with Bad people. And Bad people, well, they should have thought before they did something Bad which made them Bad people.

Isabel Fall's harassment happened in early 2020, before quarantine started, but it was in so many ways a final chance for fandom to hit the breaks. A chance for fandom to think collectively about what it wanted to be, who it wanted to be for and how it wanted to do it. And fandom looked at this and said, "more, please." It continues to harass marginalized people, especially fans of color and queen fans, into suffering mental breakdowns. With gusto.

Any ideas of reparative reading is dead. Fandom runs solely on paranoid readings. And so too is restorative justice gone for fandom transgressions, real or imagined. It is now solely about punitive, vigilante justice. It's a concerted campaign to make sure oddballs conform or die (in spirit, but sometimes even physically given how often mentally ill individuals are pushed into committing suicide).

It's a deeply toxic environment and I'm sad to say that Isabel Fall's story was, in retrospect, a sort of event horizon for the fandom. The gravitational pull of these harassment campaigns is entirely too strong now and there is no escaping it. I'm sorry, I hate to say something so bleak, but thinking the last few days about the state of fandom (not just my current one but also others I watch from the outside), I just don't think we can ever go back to peaceful "for joy" engagement, not when so many people are determined to use it as an outlet for lateral aggression against other people.

[lightseoul]

so i finally did it, y'all—i commissioned the wonderful @zestivivi to draw my first-ever °˖✧ self-ship art °˖✧

and i couldn't help it upon seeing the draft; i had to write a drabble to give it a bit of a backstory and to really just treat myself, so here it is!

(the pic is under the cut, if you're not in the mood to read and just wanna take a peek at it!)

CALL ME YOUR FAVORITE, CALL ME THE WORST (k. bakugou x reader)

“—and so i told eijirou he could go to hell if he asked me to cover for him tonight,” bakugou finishes, just as you twist your key one last time, effectively unlocking the door.

you toss him a chastising look as you push it open, trying to ignore the hammering in your chest as you do so. “don’t talk to your best friend like that, katsuki.”

at that, he scoffs, trailing behind you and entering through the doorway. “correction, you’re my best friend. and he’s used to it.”

despite yourself, a smile manages to creep into your face, which bakugou unfortunately catches sight of. the man only smirks to himself before gesturing to his trainers, “where do i put these?”

“beside my birks, please,” you sing-song, although your voice comes out a bit wobbly.

fucking nerves.

dropping your bag on the counter, you quickly shuffle through your kitchen and toward your dining area slash living room slash bedroom, scanning the space for any spot you’ve missed before bakugou could see them.

you’re just about to conclude that this place is as tidy as it can get when you sense the pro-hero walk up beside you, and you look at him to see his eyes darting across the area in inspection, a pensive expression on his face.

“what’re you thinking?” you blurt out before you can stop yourself. you immediately regret it, though, bracing yourself for constructive feedback that you know will sting nonetheless.

it’s not every day you get to show your new place that’s your very own to anybody, let alone to your famously (notoriously) pedantic boyfriend.

“it's really clean,” he starts, pausing to think for a moment. he eventually turns to face you, that smirk from before now back on his face, “it’s very you. i like it.”

you feel a warmth wash over you, and you don’t fight the grin that’s invading your features. “aww, thanks, babe!”

he waves you off with a hand, resuming his thorough survey of your unit. “‘s nice how you displayed your books here, and that your guitar is easy to reach for. and your decorations are just abo—”

you glance back at the man from where you were hurriedly pouring him a cold glass of water, “just about what, kats?”

to that, bakugou doesn’t say anything. he seems frozen, eyes fixed on what you think is your entertainment area.

you pad toward the spot beside him, and you follow his line of vision.

directly right to your dynamight figurines.

almost instantly, your stomach drops as if you just got hit by a metaphorical tsunami of scalding humiliation. your feet move before your brain can catch up, and in a matter of seconds, you find yourself planted right in front of bakugou, obscuring his view of his mini-me’s.

at least, you tried to. the tall man only continues to effortlessly stare at them through the space above your head.

“so what do you want for dinner?” you manage to croak out, desperate to change the subject and bones threatening to give out in embarrassment.

“…is that a funko pop of all might and… me?”

the ground can swallow you up just about now, thanks.

for a beat, you debate as to whether or not to joke or lie your way out of this one, but one look at the inexplicable expression on your boyfriend’s face has you ultimately decided against it.

“…yes?”

now, in the split second of choosing to tell the truth, you came up with the expectations of him snorting in response, or maybe shooting you a confused look that reads ‘what the fuck’ or something similar, but you certainly didn’t predict him to laugh.

as in, drop his head back and howl laugh.

immediately, you feel yourself flame in shame as you watch the pro-hero bend slightly over and clutch his stomach in mirth, what you think are tears now pooling in the corners of his clenched eyes.

you can’t help but frown, “quit laughing at me, you jerk!”

that only makes him bark out another loud one, and just when you think he’s about to finish, he wheezes: “and you’ve got a nendoroid of me, too!”

that’s it.

you spin on your heel, turning your back on your jackass of a boyfriend, and you’re about to scoop the figurines into your arms and throw them into the abyss at the back of your closet when you feel something tug at your wrist, pulling you and your entire body back.

and before you can even comprehend what’s happening, bakugou’s invading your space and leaning toward you, planting his forehead right at the crook of your neck.

“wha—”

you’re cut off by bakugou snuggling into you, and you can feel him shake in laughter before the chuckles finally escape him and you’re both left in comfortable silence.

you hope he’s not hearing the thunderous ruckus your heart is making right now despite yourself.

a few moments pass with neither of you moving or saying anything before you finally decide to speak up.

“if you think this’ll make up for you laughing so blatantly at me, you’ve got another thing coming for you, mister.”

at that, bakugou snorts, retorting without missing a beat. “i wasn’t laughing at you, dumbass.”

you roll your eyes, although you don’t make any move to push him away. “sure, you weren’t.”

“i’m serious. it just caught me off guard.”

“and then you started laughing at me.”

from where he’s slotted right by your neck, bakugou huffs, and you stop yourself from shivering at the feeling of his breath against your skin.

“i was just laughing at how everything’s turned out, alright?”

instinctively, your eyebrows furrow in question, “what do you mean?”

he sighs, the puff of air he lets out tickling your flesh again, “i just think it’s fucking funny how i grew up with a shit ton of all might merch, and now i have my own merch displayed right beside him, in my girlfriend’s new home, no less.”

and, before you can even feign offense at his comment, he beats you to it.

“i’m just fucking happy, okay? just let me have this.”

you don’t know what else to say at his sudden confession, and so you only manage a nod, moving your head just enough for him to feel the gesture. slowly, you allow yourself to relax your shoulders and lean toward bakugou, who snuggles even closer to you in return.

“they’re quite expensive, you know,” you offer after a few seconds of silence. “and yours are especially hard to come by.”

you can practically hear the grin on his face when he quips, “what, am i your favorite hero, or something?”

“no,” you immediately retort, deadpan. “all might is. explains why i only have one figurine of him and a gazillion of you in here.”

at that, bakugou lets out a genuine laugh, and you don’t have to look at him to know he’s sporting that boyish grin and disarming eye smile that really nobody else has the honor of witnessing.

nobody except you.

you hesitantly bring your right hand up, unable to resist the urge to gently cradle the back of his head. upon the split second of contact, however, bakugou stiffens, and you’ve half a mind to withdraw and pull away when he does so.

but all the apprehension evaporates from your system when almost immediately after, he nestles closer into you.

you feel yourself flush at the motion, failing to stop the smile that takes over your lips.

and, if you didn’t know any better, you’d bet your expensive ass dynamight figurines he’s blushing, too.

bonus:

you’re in the middle of feeding yourself a spoonful of chicken curry when you decide you finally have enough. placing the serving firmly on your platter, you shift to face bakugou, who’s at your right and eating beside you.

more of side-eyeing you than eating in the past thirty minutes since dinner arrived, really.

you pull your lips in a tight line, “spit it out, kats.”

at that, he tosses you a disgusted look, before quickly swallowing the mouthful of cabbage he was just munching on. “why the fuck should i do that?”

you roll your eyes, “not the food, dummy. you’ve got something you want to say.”

“i do not.”

you only give him a knowing stare.

bakugou huffs, putting down his own spoon after a pregnant pause, “fine.”

it takes him a moment to finally do so, and when he does you almost choke.

“…so who the fuck is akaashi and why do you also have one of him?”

for context, here's my entertainment area LMAO i really took self-indulgence to another level, huh (sorry not sorry) title is from the song call me by shinedown (credits to @creativepromptsforwriting for the idea)

anyway, thank you so much again to @/zestivivi for turning my vision into reality and then some <3 thank you for being so easy to work with and receptive to my requests, particularly to make the character look just like me! 'til the next one, for sure :,)

[moonreader1010]

Pac: how people perceive you<3

Note: 1. take what resonates.

2. Take a deep breath. Ask your spirit guides to help you choose the pile and choose the one that calls out to you.

3. Pictures used are from Pinterest. All rights go to the original owner.

Pile 1:

She'll put you in a trance at first glance

Don't wanna fall in love, but I'll take a chance

straight up I got vision of this one picture that I saw on Pinterest a while back. It was a rabbit in an armour with some sort of spikey weapon and it said “soft but not available for mistreatment”. Very do not harm but take no shit vibes. I see major cancer placements. You can tame anyone. I keep getting beauty and the beast vibes. Like, you know how to tame people. People listen to you but I don’t see and boss employee kind of relationship but more like a goddess and her followers kind of relationship. I see you being hurt in the past. Was growing up difficult baby? Did someone hurt you? I wanna hug you right now. You are an inspiration. You are a warrior and you are so so strong and wise. I feel like we are getting away from the actual question of the reading but I feel like someone wanted me to tell you this hahah. So onto the question that how people perceive you, I think they can tell that you have been through something that changed you. Made you stronger and wiser. People definitely see you as someone who will nail the trope of “taming the bad boy” haha. But ofcourse remember that it’s not your job to fix anyone and I feel like you already know this. People see you as someone who dances in the rain, confident (lots of cards show me the theme of confidence actually), hopeful. They also see you as this boss lady (gender neutral). They see you as someone who is busy building empires.

Additional: student, business, garden, summer dresses, flowers.

Song: Dangerous woman by Wieland

Pile 2: You wear that cast so cool

And I'm in awe

A face like you've never seen before

Around

people see you as someone who is constantly moving(it could be traveling or you know, making moves generally) you are not a still entity. You are always doing something. People see you as someone who is very private and mysterious. It’s hard to know anything about you. Moon seems to be really significant for some reason. People also see you as someone who cuts people of very quickly. No bullshit kinda person. You can deal with absence but won’t take disrespect. You are an achiever. People see you as someone who is constantly trying to learn something. You are open to experiences. You walk away from a situation that doesn’t serve you and that’s what many people admire about you. Young hear and old soul is what I keep hearing. People feel like they can come to you for help and also see you as someone who is very sensible.

Additional: wood, earth signs, moon, 3, heart on your sleeves, white flowers, driving far away.

Songs for you: Ever (foreign sleep) by team sleep.

Pile 3: Baby, this is what you came for

Lightning strikes every time she moves

And everybody's watchin' her

But she's lookin' at you,

people see you as someone who works really hard. They see you as someone who is very responsible and completes tasks like a pro. They see you as a leader. Is acts of services you love language? People feel like they can always count on you. You are always there to help people. You honestly are a great leader you know? Some people seem to see you as a rival. A competition. You make people competitive pile 3. People see you as someone who is very faithful. You are almost untouchable to people. You seem to be on an entire different level that they cannot reach. People see you as someone who is smart and has a way with words. You seem like someone who would do great in negotiations and business exchange lol.

Additional: ships, sea, commerce, green,

Song for you: this is what you came for by Calvin Harris and Rihanna. (Very Rihanna energy lol)

[statisticallymorelikely]

✨00Q end of the year fic rec list ✨ (to commemorate the year of the lord 2023 when this ship came back to kick my ass)

the simplest of crimes by pdameron - fake marriage AU. my favorite 00Q fake married au just because the stakes are so low like they didn't have to do all that but the build up is so good.

come a lily, come a lilac by pdameron - florist!Q AU. this really got me giggling and twirling my hair.

James Bond Will Return by sorion - post-Spectre James comes back. a very charming character study.

as permanent as stone cathedrals by pdameron - pining Q. beautifully written with just the right amount of whump.

people can surprise you (or not) by pdameron - fake relationship but posh. i love whodunnits.

Hold Tight by orphan_account - Spectre fix-it. and fix it they did. also has my second favorite Q name.

lacunae (just the blood you owe) by finestkind - Q offers comfort as bond deals with grief. this fic honestly makes me ache, the way it handles friendship and grief and love UGH.

Say Something (I'm Giving Up On You) by Brihna - Spectre re-write where Q and James sleep before he goes off to Mexico. possibly my favorite Spectre fix-it, love emotional constipation and miscommunication.

Crossing the Bar by GwynDuLac - Q pulls bond out of retirement for an emergency mission. the best mission fic i have ever read hands down.

bloom on my skin, echo in my soul by Areiton - soulmate au. gorgeous writing.

if I couldn't be strong by SailorChibi - post-Spectre James is found abandoned in a hospital in a coma. i love how quietly vindictive Q is in this.

a bloodless coup by Ark - marathon sex. very vulnerable.

I Could've Been a Maths Teacher by Brihna - Q branch gets invaded. v good translation of the comic into prose.

I Don't Take Your Pleasure For Granted by Catchclaw - Q develops a crush. love me some pathetic Q.

I Won't Shiver, I Won't Shake by Only_1_Truth - Skyfall re-write, lots of Q whump. the hurt is so good but the comfort is even better. plus i love attack roombas.

Favours by dhampir72 - pining from Q's POV. fun fact: my gf once quoted a line of this fic to me and i knew immediately which fic she was reading, that's how much i've read this.

rain by Aniron84 - touch starved Q. god GOD, this fic!! there was a time in my life, i read this multiple times a day. the description of loneliness is so on point it always hurts.

Fidelity by marlowe_tops - Q seems to have picked up a stray. local idiot doesn’t know he’s in a relationship, struggles mentally

Indelible by enjolras_lexa - 5+1 of bond breaking into Q's apartment. quite gentle and funny.

A Hitch in the Holster by APrettySpy - Q is having A Time during a heat wave and like Q i'm not immune to the holster

when the world isn't fair by Mlle_Heloise - James rescues Q's holiday. warm and fluffy.

The Pros and Cons of Wayward Agents by Brihna - Q whump with a protective Bond. is it bad to be all teehee while reading someone beat someone else to unconsciousness

Best Dressed by HandsAcrossTheSea - PWP with kilts! really good p0rn and with bottom Bond to boot!

Through A New Lens: A Spectacular Love Story by christinefromsherwood - Q discovers he has a glasses kink, or does he? listen, i too am not immune to daniel craig in glasses so i can relate.

talk / listen by thestalwartheart - dirty talk. a masterclass in p0rn honestly, SO good.

The Inevitability of Time by dhampir72 - soulmate au. will never stop recommending this, it's so tragic and yet not?

[goresuki]

my thoughts on Charlastor and Alastor calling Charlie "the daughter he never had"

this will be a very long rant/vent/whatever. also, a kind of... agressive one. if u wanna read, read it, if u don't, don't, idc and idm. I don't know if some antis take things for convenience (that way) or if they really are naive, because the fact that a manipulative guy like Alastor, whose intentions are unknown, tells Charlie that he sees her as "the daughter he never had" DOES NOT SOUND as CUTE to me as many DO seem to think it does.

I don't know if they don't realize the relationship Charlie has with her parents and how Alastor seems to take advantage of her.

From the pilot we realize that Charlie has no contact with her mother. In the series it is established that they have not seen each other for 7 years.

The first episode JUST talks about Charlie having so called "daddy issues" as her father, Lucifer, is an absentee father.

Charlie appears to NOT have had a close relationship with ANY of the two for some time (or quite some time).

The only person Charlie has is Vaggie, to protect and care for her (here's why Vaggie is so "boring", as some people call her, as she is acting as a guide/parental figure for Charlie, even though their relationship is romantic).

Where am I going with these points? That I think it's complete nonsense for people to take super-literally what Alastor has said: "you're like the daughter I always wanted to have".

Isn't it convenient for the most feared overlord (not the strongest) to approach Charlie and find that she's not as vulnerable as he thought (because Vaggie is there)? Isn't it convenient for Alastor to make a very absolute polarity between Vaggie and him in the pilot, where Vaggie comes off as the "bitter one" and he as the "fun guy"? Isn't it convenient for Alastor to PROVE to Charlie over and over again that HE knows what SHE NEEDS by pulling his tricks? And, oh, surprise… Isn't it even more convenient that when Lucifer arrives, who has a lousy relationship with his daughter, Charlie, Alastor rubs it in his face that he is doing everything that he (Lucifer) is responsible for, and furthermore, hits him right where it hurts, manipulating Charlie so that she seriously BELIEVES that Alastor REALLY sees her that way, and thus making her STILL not have a GUIDE other than HIMSELF?

I'll make it simple for you. You know how narcissists work? They will make you believe that YOU are special, and at the same time, they will ALIENATE you from your loved ones to keep gaining whatever they need from you. Charlie is, literally, his supply.

Alastor is a psychopath and narcissist. Do you really think that someone who can't genuinely empathize and love is literally going to feel affection for a grown woman who is very naive and doesn't even have power over her kingdom because she is so immature? Don't you think it is VERY OBVIOUS that he has literally said to her face: "I'm going to manipulate you in my favor because thanks to me you have all these upgrades in your stupid hotel"?

Alastor hasn't as such made a deal with Charlie, but he's winning her over in HIS way.

And I don't know who's crazier: charlastor shippers like me, who don't give a damn about canon and want to enjoy shipping WITHOUT bothering ANYONE (and don't come out with the stupidity that it's a "proship". Proshipper doesn't even mean "problematic ship", it means that you are FOR shipping whatever you want, living and letting live, without HARASSING others. Let's remember that Hazbin Hotel characters DON'T. FUCKING. EXIST. Alastor is not going to come out of the screen to say: "omg, user, thanks for defending me from those evil shippers uwu", or Charlie to say: "thanks for defending me, you're so good, user…. You're such a good person". Pro: "in favor of", shipper: "shipper, ship", however you want to call it. Don't modify terms to suit yourselves because you can tell that many don't even know how suffixes and prefixes work in words. Neither Charlie nor Alastor are going to die because someone shipped them. They are FICTITIOUS characters. The FANON is not going to change the CANON. Learn to sepparate stuff, ffs. Go out and touch grass once in a while) or antis who put on a pedestal what Alastor said, believing it as a justification to ATTACK people in the fandom who shipped something different, according to them, "problematic".

There they do forget that Alastor is a manipulator, that he is a person with a LOT of arsenal to get his way. There they forget that he IS a guy Charlie should NOT trust. There it DOES count because IT CONVENIENTS THEM. That's when the canon MATTERS to them. There it COUNTS. It doesn't matter if Charlie gets hurt because of trusting Alastor, they only see what they want to see. If you guys are going to humanize this fucking characters, at least be a little bit logical. Got me? Remember what Viv said?: "ship whatever you want, JUST DON'T HARASS ANYONE". These people say: "fuck what Viv says", but on this occasion, since she DID say something convenient for them, it DOES matter what Viv says now, doesn't it? Hypocrites.

Charlie has no one beyond Alastor, and I don't remember where I read that theory, whether it was here or elsewhere, where they talked about Alastor looking for a way to alienate the hotel itself in one way or another. That's why he doesn't use very flashy technology (Vox can travel through the latest electronics, and the hotel has an old box TV), nor does he go out of his way to provide anything of good quality (like the video camera). The hotel has its own power supply (we see this when the blackout occurs during the song between Alastor and Vox).

Alastor DOES NOT WANT Charlie as his daughter, he's just taking advantage of her to get whatever he needs to get out of her.

Charlie doesn't even seem to know exactly how her powers work, and the only person who can teach her is Lucifer, her father. And if Lucifer is out of the equation, Alastor can do whatever he wants.

He's hit Lucifer right in the jugular, and Lucifer knows that all the power in the world can't make up for the wrong he did to Charlie.

Anyway, if a real anti thinks Charlastor is problematic because "AlASTor AlreADy SaiD hE sEES hEr As a DauGhtER," I remind them that they are not dealing with a character who cares about others beyond maintaining his own status, and ffs... they're not even real. KEEP SHIPPING. KEEP DRAWING. KEEP MAKING FANFICS. FUCK THESE PEOPLE THAT TRY TO HARASS YOU, FUCK THESE PEOPLE THAT TRY TO MAKE EVERYTHING "PURE" ON A SHOW ABOUT DEMONS AND HELL. FUCK THESE PEOPLE TRYING TO MAKE A FANDOM THEIR OWN FUCKING WAY BECAUSE THEY CAN'T HANDLE THERE'S A LOT OF DIFFERENT VIEWS. FUCK THEIR SAVIOR COMPLEX, JUST COMING AROUND WHEN IT'S ALL ABOUT CHARACTERS THAT DON'T EXIST, FEEL, OR THINK FOR THEMSELVES, BUT DISAPPEARS ANYTIME SOMEONE REAL COMES, HARASSING AND SENDING DEATH THREATS TO THEM. FUCK THESE PEOPLE, GIVING PSYCHOLOGICAL DIAGNOSES OVER A FUCKING TIKTOK VIDEO OTHER ANTI MADE JUST BASING THEIR THEORIES ON THEIR FIST RESULT ON GOOGLE. FUCK YALL, CAUSE YOU'RE THE REASON YOU WHINE ABOUT THIS FANDOM. JUST AS WE SAY IN SPANISH: O LA BEBES, O LA DERRAMAS.

[frownyalfred]

Can I get clarification on your pro shipping post? The example you gave was a 20 year old with a 40 year old, and that's "problematic" (not really), but not really what I think of when I hear "pro shipping". Usually it's the shipping of minor/adult or incestuous relationships that I see getting defended. Does being against fictional works/ships that depict pedophilic or incestuous relationships as normal/romantic count as puritanism to you? Do you see the ship of Bruce Wayne/Damian Wayne as a personal preference with no moral implications?

I think there's a huge difference between being personally against something, and wanting to shame others or ban others from reading or writing something. The Puritanism comes from wanting to limit and ostracize others who don't share your beliefs. It comes from believing that your perspective is the only morally right one.

I think there will always be people who want to write or read about ships like that, yeah -- incest, pseudo-incest, everything in between. By moral implications, do you mean for the person interested in the ship? Or do you mean for others? Because I see that concern a lot on here -- this idea that somehow, by wanting to read/write about something, people are either 1) harming others by spreading this morally wrong ship or 2) harming themselves by normalizing the ship, and therefore making it more likely that they'll pursue similar relationships in their real lives.

We don't have much evidence for either of those claims. People have been clutching their pearls and wringing their hands over "morally wrong" books for ages -- and yet, Game of Thrones is still available in every bookstore. Am I a bad or woefully misguided person for having read Lolita in high school? Is a 16 year old reading a Bruce/Damian fic likely to turn around, shrug, and say "guess fucking my Dad is okay now"? Did an entire generation of fans shipping Wincest somehow have lasting, moral effects? I really don't think so. Not at the scale anti-shippers online seem to think, at least.

I think we need to separate how we moralize people from the content that they consume. And acknowledge that shaming and excluding people for wanting to read something doesn't exactly do much to prevent "moral implications." There's also a huge difference between reading a book, and endorsing the ideas/events inside of it. Same things with fics.

Anti-shipping is very appealing to people because it purports to protect people from harm. Until you look a little closer, and you realize that that protection comes at the expense of free expression, creative license, and agency to choose what we personally do and do not consume. And that that protection isn't really airtight out of your anti-shipping discord or tumblr community.

I think the best we can do is let people write and read what they want -- whatever they want, with limited warnings/etc like ao3 employs -- and ensure that those pieces of content are tagged, warned, and displayed accurately. We need to understand that the only control we have is over ourselves, and what we choose personally to consume or not consume.

I don't generally read those fics you mentioned, but I'm not saying they should be banned from ao3. Just because I might possibly think they're wrong or gross doesn't mean I think the person who wrote them is wrong or gross, either. The more we go down that moral slip and slide, like I said in my previous post, the worse off we will all become.

[thewertsearch]

Familial Determinism

Or: let's make wild, uninformed guesses about the troll Ancestors, based solely on the lives of their descendants!

As a bearer of the lowest blood on the hemospectrum, Aradia’s ancestor was probably as poor as she is. She may have been an archeologist like her descendant, assuming the field existed in her era, but I'm much more interested in her potential necromancy.

On the instruction of your ANCESTORS, you have recovered MYSTERIOUS TECHNOLOGY from the ruins, and convinced a friend to adapt it into a GAME THAT WILL BRING ABOUT THE DESTRUCTION OF YOUR CIVILIZATION.

See, due to her bloodline, Granny Megido is the most likely ancestor to be behind the Voices. She's the only one who can claim a direct relationship to Aradia, and I think she was probably still around in the modern era - as a ghost, of course - guiding her young protege, as she worked to trigger the apocalypse.

What's your story, Granny Meg? How did a lowblood medium discover the secrets of Sgrub, centuries before it arrived? How much did you know back then - and how much influence do you still have, even now?

If Alternia's past is anything like its present - and it certainly seems to be - then I can't see Tavros's ancestor surviving there for long. If he survived to adulthood, then it was probably as a peaceful nomad, or perhaps some sort of ranger.

Either way, I don't think he'd involve himself with other trolls, instead preferring to spend time with his planet's wildlife. Basically, I'm picturing Snow White with a mohawk.

Sollux’s ancestor is undoubtedly still a techhead. I know it's centuries in the past, but this is proto-Sollux we're talking about. He'd invent technology if he had to.

Actually, that might have been his role. He could have been one of Alternia's first engineers, leveraging his Sgrub foreknowledge to contribute to Alternia's technological advancement.

Congratulations, Sollux Senior - you helped turn a nation of pirates into a space empire.

Karkat's an interesting one. In a more primitive society - ie, one without Imperial Drones - it might have been easier for him to hide his blood color.

...actually, he might not even have Karkat's blood color. It's possible that Karkat's candy red mutation is unique to him, and the other Vantas has yellow-green blood, like his Trollian position implies he should. That would result in an ancestor with a very different social position to Karkat, and the two could be substantially different as a result.

Nepeta’s current lifestyle would translate perfectly to a primitive Alternia. Her ancestor could easily still live in a cave – and since shipping is probably her calling, too, I'm picturing her as an accomplished matchmaker.

Kanaya’s situation is rather unique. Jadebloods are rare, and inextricably linked to the Mother Grub, so her ancestor has some of the strongest ties to her counterpart.

We're actually aware of an ancient Mother Grub, who may have been alive in the time of the ancestors - which hints at a relationship between Kanaya's ancestor and the next troll on our list.

That would be Terezi's ancestor, whose symbol adorns the Doomsday Scale. This device was probably a collaboration between the Pyrope and Maryam ancestors. Its purpose is unknown, but the Gate symbol is proof that someone had Sgrub foreknowledge. Curious.

Anyway, aside from this side hustle, Pyrope was probably a legislacerator. I wonder if the Alternian legal system was as broken then as it is now?

Equius... well, I don't really know, actually. He certainly feels like the kind of guy who’d model himself off his ancestor, so he was probably a pro-hemospectrum horse enthusiast.

Gamzee’s ancestor could have gone one of two ways. If Sopor Slime existed back in early Alternia, he might have been as docile as his descendant used to be. If it didn’t, he was probably the exact kind of bloodthirsty monster that Gamzee is currently regressing into.

I know which option I'm putting my money on, and it's the one that would make Gamzee proud of his 'Subjugglator' ancestors. Can you guess which?

Eridan’s ancestor is the Orphaner, which makes me think he has a similar role as a slayer of lusi. My best guess is that he killed the custodians of adult trolls.

Feferi is an odd case, because her ancestor would probably be an extremely famous historical empress. Fuchsia blood is so rare that Feferi is literally the only modern troll who has it, so I wouldn't be surprised if her ancestor was revered in her time.

What did you do to Alternia, Pexies? Did you help make it what it is, or - like your descendant - did you try to make it better?

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL - The Industry is Having Issues But the Spice Spicy Must Flow

Organized, in each category, with ones I'm enjoying most at the top.

March 2024 Wk 4

Ongoing Series - Thai

Two Worlds (Thurs IQIYI) eps 1-2 of 10 - One of those "he's dead Jim so time travel" thingames starring MaxNat. I'm over this concept but I do enjoy MaxNat. Phupha (Gun) and Khram (Nat) love each other but Phupha is murdered. Then Khram is pulled to a parallel world where, years ago, Khram and Tai (Max) were in love. However, Khram was killed by Tai’s dad. Now Tai finds alter-Khram. But then there is ALSO an alter-Phupha to deal with. (Phupha is played by Gun Thanawat who was Khom, the repressed butler bodyguard from Unforgotten Night. We like this, but we scared of the love triangle aspect.) Did that make sense? Yeah, okay, see what I mean?

Initial thoughts?

The subs are troubling but I’m enjoying this show a lot. It’s nice to see MaxNat get something meaty to sink their teeth into - that’s not just each other. Also it’s so smart of them to give us a fully fleshed out entire episode developing the alter romance rather than just a separation + death. It makes Khram’s grief and motivation that much more believable. Also it’s really nice to see Nat have good chemistry with other actors. 

Deep Night (Thurs iQiyi) ep 3 of 8 (10?) - I'm still enjoying it. But Two Worlds is objectively better. So this one has lost ranking. Also, unexpectedly chili (the name of my heavy metal Thai cover band).

Lovey switchy and verse main couple too.

This is all quite pleasing.

The bit where the hosts pretend to be a BL couple actor ship was epic on so many levels.

Also unsettling.

All sex work is performative, and in a way there is something more honest about this depiction, in this setting, than what BL actors are made to do on the promo circuit. Which then begs the question, how different is BL from sex work? That's the unsettling bit, for me anyway. Not to slam on sex work AT ALL, we pro-the-true-pros on this damn blog, but actors have been shaded by association with True Professionals for a very long time and BL has already had one epic shut down in this regard. (See the PerthSaint scandal around Love By Chance, no I will not explain.) Where was I? Oh yes, so anyway, see the Gossip section for the part where they better be paid either way!

Also, since I'm a warped fucker, I found this scene funny.

And then hilarious when all of those BL tropes were just trotted out. Like a greatest hits reel.

Truly beyond meta. (How Absolute BL of them.)

Note he’s even standing in yaoi's patented "hands in pocket with the shoulders back"? 

Meanwhile, the gayest bridge in Thailand made its quarterly appearance:

And lip serviced was paid to the most touristy romantic things you can do in Bangkok.

And I mean lip service literally. 

To Be Continued (Thai C3 Thailand grey) ep 5 of 8 - I’m still enjoying it but getting more and more nervous. We getting too close to Promise territory for comfort. EXPLAIN Ji’s reticence well and do it now or risk audience mistrust. We have to be given a GOOD reason for Ji's behavior, or he'll be irredeemable.

City of Stars (Fri iQIYI) ep 8 of 12 - NO SINGING. Yes smiley kisses and good communication and a nice healthy relationship. But no singing!

1000 Years Old ep 6 of 12 - Dropping in the ranks. I’m sorry it’s just gotten boring. It has, however, inspired me to invest in my own ridiculous cream fuzzy sweater. Which I plan to wear with leather trousers and huge stumpy boots, like the Kpop queer I truly am. Or do I mean vampire? 

Kiseki Chapter 2 (Sun iQIYI) ep 1 of 6 - Seems to be an excuse for a small posse of Thai actors to wander around Tokyo playing tourist and sing in public . Someone stop them?

“Most people think this kind of thing is bad manners .”

Anyway, it’s v boring. I’ll give it one more ep but I suspect I’ll DNF.

Close Friend Season 3: Soju Bomb! (Weds iQIYI) eps 1-2 of 6 - Meh. This is also looking suspiciously DNF-a-licious.  

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

Unknown (Taiwan Tues Youku YouTube & Viki) ep 5 of 11 - It's brilliant. I love it. I'm ready to hurt. Let’s do this thing. 

Distribution note: This one has been picked up and is also airing on Viki now, so it may lose YT distribution in soem territories. I like Youku's hard subs better than Viki's subs, but that's a matter of preference not information since I don't speak Mandarin.

Love is Better the Second Time Around AKA Koi wo Suru nara Nidome ga Joto (Japan Weds Gaga) ep 3 of 6 - It is good. Every week I like this show a little more. I'm enjoying a reunion romance explored in Japan's quintessentially contemplative yet slightly surreal way. The juxtaposition of the tenderness of the sex scene with this Japanese brand of authenticity was oddly elegant - for lack of a better way of putting it. All in all, this is a good show. Thought provoking. Stylish.

AntiReset (Taiwan Fri Viki/Gaga) ep 9 of 10 - It remains lovely but they sure are reusing a lot of footage. Also, this was a classic penultimate doom episode. I do wonder how they are going to resolve this show ethically.

My Strawberry Film (Japan Thurs Gaga) ep 6 of 8 - It is what it is, and it isn’t my style of show no matter what country of origin. Oddly that's one of the reasons I don't like it. Anyone could have made this, it's not as Japanese as I want it to be, it's just indie film club high school angst. Yawn.

I watched it, finally

The Servant and the Young Master (Vietnam YouTube) 7 eps - I dislike vertical filming, but I kind of enjoyed this show as a BL. I like class conflict romances. For me the rich kid is a bit too dictatorial (edges into bulling), but it’s kinda works. It’s sparse and underdeveloped and a bit plotless, but mildly entertaining. If you're missing Vietnamese BL you might give it a try. 6/10 

Began Beginning (Myanmar YouTube) 8eps - A Burmese BL that I had thoughts about but actually ended up recommending. Read the saga here:

It's done, ready to binge, but I suck

What Did You Eat Yesterday Season 2 AKA Kinou Nani Tabeta? Season 2 (Japan Gaga) 10 eps

It's airing but...

Graduation Countdown (Taiwan YouTube) ep 1 of ? - on one hand it's micro-installment vertical, on the other it's adorable and from Taiwan. I blame @heretherebedork entirely for my conundrum. As indeed, I did for My Type back in the day. (That was Nat Chen's first BL, yes of Kiseki: Dear To Me fame.) So I think I will also simply lean on Here to let me know when it's done and binge all at once. It's just too much to ask me to keep up with 2 minute pieces, I don't have that kind of endurance training, not even for BL.

Time the series (Tue Gaga/YT) 10 eps - it's finished now, I dropped it at ep 4. Should I bother?

A Secretly Love (Thai Sat WeTV grey) 10 eps - I watched the first ep but grey is too much work for this inferior of a show. I may pick up and binge if it gets distribution but for now, it gets a DNF from me. KimCop might have held this crap together but Kim without Cop? No thank you.

Lady Boy Friends (Thai WeTV grey) 16 eps - reminds me a bit too much of Diary of Tootsies only high school. Not my thing. DNF unless it turns a corner and is truly amazing for some reason.

Man Suang that MileApo vehicle from last year is coming to Netflix in the USA. I haven't heard much about it and since the KP stans would have lost their tiny minds if it was any good at all, I'm assuming it's not good at all.

Gossip

Thai BL actor Yoon breaks with his former company and talks about some very very VERY shady goings on in the Thai BL industry. Including not being paid.

And whacha know, same thing happening in Korean BL.

Have I mentioned recently how much I hate the film industry?

Next Week Looks Like This:

Starting Soon

3/31 Only Boo! (Thai GMMTV YouTube) 12 eps - New main couple for GMMTV in an idol romance about a boy who dances good and a food stand vendor. Other side of the tracks grumpy/sunshine pair who fall deeply in love but, of course, baby boy idol can't date. Boyband but from GMMTV? Control your singing and I'm game.

4/1 Love is like a Cat (Korea ????) 12 eps - This completed filming Aug 2022(!) which means there have been serious problems with post-production. This is another of Silkwood's Korean+Thai colab projects. Mew Suppasit plays a rookie film star, called the Cat Prince (for his cold arrogance) who goes up against a charismatic puppyish animal daycare director (JM of JUST B). There is also a side romance (love triangle?) with a veterinarian. Geonu of JUST B is also in the cast.

I wonder if this was part of the hold up, with Geonu on Build Up right now, they might have tried to muffle this one. Or maybe it's just that bad...

4/3 We Are (Thai GMMTV YouTube) 12 eps - University ensemble BL featuring PondPhuwin, WinnySatang, AouBoom, MarcPawinPoon - basically the good kind of messy gay friendship group (so more My Engineer and less Only Friends). Looks a bit like the Kiss series but everyone is queer. I'm IN!

Knock-Knock Boys (Thai WeTV?) - 4 college friends conspire to help their friend lose his virginity. Familiar faces like Seng (yes, Billy's previous partner), Best and frest face, news here.

Upcoming BLs for 2024 are listed here. This list is not kept updated, so please leave a comment if you know something new or RP with additions.

NOTE: It looks like one of my personal favorites of last year Unintentional Love Story is getting a spin off!

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

Without ghost girl.

With ghost girl.

I think she may be my favorite part of 1000 Years.

CLASSIC tsundere seme description of a sunshine uke. Like classic'est of classic. (Two Worlds)

Is there such a thing as a tired trope in a BL? Since it is a genre that is made up entirely of tropes quilted together? Your philosophical question for today brought to you by Deep Night's kabedon (Japanese trope) + punishment threat (Thai trope).

Love me a lap sit moment. (City of Stars)

(Last week)

Streaming services are listed by how I (usually) watch, which is with a USA based IP, and often offset by a day because time zones are too much work.

The tag BLigade: @doorajar @solitaryandwandering @my-rose-tinted-glasses @babymbbatinygirl @babymbbatinygirl @isisanna-blog @mmastertheone

If ya wanna be tagged each week leave a comment and I will add you to the template. Easy peesy.

[starlight-bread-blog]

Why I No Longer Ship Zvtara

Warning: This is a very anti zvtara & pro kataang post. This is your chance to leave.

As some of you may know, I am (or rather was), a Zvtara shipper. But lately I've been shying away from the ship. A lot of the arguments I used to believe in, for me, don't hold water anymore. And given how vocal I was about shipping Zvtara, I feel like I owe you an explanation. In this post I will go through common pro Zvtara & anti kataang arguments and unpack why I can no longer support them in good faith. (I will kinda burn through them though, it's just that feel like I owe you this).

"Zvko and Katara's character arcs & characters are parallels"

This is interesting because I wrote an essay on this very subject, and I still stand by everything I said in the essay, but only as a platonic reading of it. See, A:TLA is full of parallels and symbolism. Zuko also has parallels with Aang, Katara has parallels with Azula, etc. In a show like this, the parallels between Zuko and Katara don't carry enough weight to justify some specialness. They have a great, incredibly well written relationship, but in my opinion, the extent of it can remain platonic without standing out.

"Tui and La represent Zvtara"

Tui and La are The Ocean and the Moon spirits and very explicitly represent Yin and Yang. I can't see Yin and Yang as Zutara for two reasons:

1) Yin is the moon, feminine and shade. The moon & feminine, that's Katara. But Yin is characterized by dark, wetness, cold, passivity, disintegration etc). Katara might have an edge, but she is not dark. Not to mention passive. And disintegration seems like the opposite of a waterbender. Katara fundamentally is not a Yin.

2) Yin and Yang is a dynamic. A self perpetuating dynamic of two opposites creating and controlling each other. Katara and Zuko never created each other. While you can argue that they control each other by being "capturing the avatar" vs "protecting the avatar", the only time this conflict of interest ever turned into a dynamic was in the north pole, and by then Zuko would go on a season long journey far away from Katara.

"Making Zvtara canon would be thematically cohesive"

I also wrote an essay on this subject, and just like my other essay, I still stand by a platonic reading of it. I even went back and edited it to make that reading more prominent. The thematic cohesion is already achieved through their platonic bond. In any show, naturally the relationships between characters are going to reflect the themes, that's just how writing works. It doesn't mean the relationship should be romantic. They already have a thematically cohesive relationship, making it a romantic one doesn't add anything.

"Aang idealizes Katara"

For context, there are some instances where Aang is dismissing Katara's anger. For example, in The Chase:

Toph: You're blaming me for this?

Katara tosses aside her sleeping bag and gestures with her hands, challenging Toph to move closer. Aang jumps in between the two.

Aang[Desperately.]: No! No, she's not blaming you.

Katara[Angrily.]: No, I'm blaming her!

Rather these instances reflect of idealization, or merely of Aang's peace seeking nature that's trying to de escalate the situation, is up to interpretation. I choose to interpret them as the latter, because of The Southern Raiders.

Katara: We're going to find the man who took my mother from me.

Sokka pauses and stands up, surprised.

Zuko: Sokka told me the story of what happened. I know who did it and I know how to find him.

Aang: Um ... and what exactly do you think this will accomplish?

A really common talking point in the Zvtara fandom is that Aang just assumes that Katara is going to murder her mother's killer, instead of simply confronting him. Either way, he knows\thinks she's talking about murder. If he'd idealized her, he'd make a different assumption.

"Kataang harms Aang's character arc"

This is referring to the dilemma presented to Aang in The Guru. He had to let go of his attachment to Katara in order to master the Avatar State. The assumption is that his chakra was blocked, therefore he didn't let go. I disagree. We see him open his seventh chakra right before Azula shoots lightning at him.

One might argue that nothing changed about Aang's relationship to Katara, so the dilemma rings hollow. But something did change, Aang was romantically braver than he was before. He got more confident. Compare his flirting from The Headbend (b3) to The Fortuneteller (b1). It's night and day. And if you ask me, this is the natural consequence of feeling less attached.

Furthermore, when he explains to the GAang why he couldn't master the Avatar State, he cites Azula's lightning as the reason:

Toph: So, what's your strategy for taking him down? Gonna get your glow on and hit him with a little Avatar State action? Aang: I can't. When Azula shot me with lightning, my seventh chakra was locked, cutting off my connection to all the cosmic energy in the universe.

He couldn't master the Avatar State because of Azula's lightning, not because of his attachment to Katara. (I heard some people say this was confirmed that Aang was still attached, but I'm a big believer in Death of the Author so I don't really care if it's true).

"Kataang was one sided"

The general consensus in the Zvtara fandom is that Kataang is framed from Aang's perspective, and while the show teases us about Katara's feelings to create a "will they get together or won't they" tension. But can all of these hints really be contextualized that way? Some can, others, not so much. For example, Katara is show to be jealous of Aang in The Headbend when he dances with On Ji, and when they dance she gives him a loving look; in The Cave of Two Lovers, Katara smiles when she suggested they should kiss, and she blushes at the end of the episode. All of these moments cannot be swept under the rug in favor of a reveal that Katara didn't love Aang.

"Katara passing herself as Aang's mom is maternal"

I never really understood this argument, if I'm being completely honest. For two reasons:

1) In Howl's Moving Castle, Sophie works as Howl assistant and falls in love with him, but she's cursed, looking like an old lady. There's a scene where she too has to pretend to be his mom, and it turns into her realizing her feelings towards him. She becomes young again, a girl Howl's age. It's a beautiful confession, while pretending to be his mom. No one criticized that, becuase pretending to be someone's mom for the sake of a mission isn't maternal.

2) Sokka is also there. I don't think it's controversial to say Sokka isn't at all a parental figure to Aang. That's because the point of this joke isn't that Katara actually is motherly towards Aang, it's that they aren't actually similar to [Aang]'s supposed parents and this entire situaton is very silly. The implication behind this joke isn't that Katara is maternal towards Aang, but that she isn't.

SO! That's all I'm covering. Now, I hope I can put this subject to rest and discuss the many other great aspects of A:TLA.

[reidingandwriting]

latched on > keigo takami/hawks (mha)

Word Count: 1.3k

Ship: Sub!Keigo Takami (Hawks) x Dom!Reader

Warnings: NSFW, smut (very loose term), mentions of abuse from the hero commission, mentions of call girls (if you squint), mention of violence (also if you squint), allusion to sub drop

A/N: Baby’s first attempt at writing some attempt at smut, I may try and do a full smut with sub!hawks later, I love my whimpering baby bird <3

how did he go from feeling so, so good to so, so stupid in the matter of minutes?

he was in bliss not even five minutes ago, whining out mixes of your name and high keens of mommy! as you worked him through another orgasm.

bottoming was new for keigo. he had never had anyone he trusted enough to tell about his desires, with the commissions grip on him. his list of ‘approved partners’ who were vetted by the commission and could (would) be… handled properly if they were to spill any details about the number two pro hero. keigo rarely ever called them, never satisfied from the basic hookups they provided, wanting so much more from his partner that he was terrified to vocalize. hero work was so demanding, he wanted to turn his mind off and just. let someone else make the decisions for him. but that required trust, and he never had that with anyone. and then he met you.

you were a PA at his agency, and as time passed, keigo found himself captivated by you. drawn to the way you treated him as if he was any other civilian. like yeah, you recognized him as a hero and what he did. you knew your work hours would be hectic due to his hours, yet you never complained. never seemed to mind really, always greeting him with a soft smile and some form of jab about him ‘messing up your beauty sleep’. which would turn into flirty banter, little jokes, and during late nights, sleepy giggles and conversations keigo would remember forever.

the shift happened when you were a plus one to a gala with him.

‘i’m not your boss right now, stop looking so tense,’ keigo teased as he rested a comforting hand on your shoulder. ‘just think of me as your smoking hot arm candy’ you laughed at his comment and rolled your eyes.

‘okay, pretty bird’ you cooed to the hero and you bit back a grin at the way his wings puffed up from the nickname. your hand met his cheek, and you turned his head to face you. golden eyes seemed to be darker, pupils dilated as he focused on the sparkling necklace you wore. ‘if only my arm candy would pay attention to me’ you pouted and keigo’s gaze met yours.

‘how could i look away?’

from there, there had been an obvious shift in your relationship with the hero. casual touches turned into lingering, intentional touches. behind the safety of his office doors, “hawks” was occasionally replaced by ‘pretty boy/bird’ and keigo had to keep from whining every time the teasing nickname left your upturned lips.

he wasn’t sure exactly what shifted that got keigo in this situation. but he found himself pinned under you, writhing under your touch. gentle touches, firm grabs. feather light touches that left him begging for more, hard grips that had him squirming and thrashing, threats of tying him down only exciting him more.

he was beautiful, you kept telling him. which he heard from fans every day, he knew he was attractive. but hearing it from you? a whole other feeling. whimpering each time ‘look so pretty, birdie’ or ‘my beautiful boy, gonna cry for me?’ and ‘my good boy, so good for me’ slipped from your lips. his breaking point? your fingers gently lifting his chin up so his teary gaze met yours, peppering his face with kisses and whispering in his ear ‘wanna see you cum, songbird. deserve it, pretty boy, i’ll take care of you. just let go’

and god did he let go. strings of white spurted from his cock, over your hands, over his stomach, but keigo was too spent to care. he was truly fucked Stupid, basking from your coos as you talked him down, your hands petting him as he calmed down. suddenly, there was a shift in the mattress and keigo couldn’t stop himself from grabbing your arm, panic filling his body as he begged you not to leave him, he’ll be good, please stay, please let him stay, and he felt his grip on you tighten. and there’s where he made his biggest mistake. he couldn’t let go.

“it’s okay, birdie. i’ll be right back, just gonna get something to clean you up.” you soothed and you frowned lightly as his grip didn’t relent. “hawks?”

keigo flinched from the use of his hero name, missing the nicknames that you called him just a minute ago. “i-i’m sorry. ‘m so sorry, i can’t-“ keigo started to hyperventilate and you were on him in a second, by his side and pulling him closer to you. keigo curled into your body, face buried in the crook of your neck, and tears burned in his eyes. moments of silence passed until it dawned on you.

“you can’t let go, can you, bub?” you asked and keigo shook his head.

“it, it will stop in a little bit. i just… i thought you were leaving me and. i panicked, i lost control. ‘m so sorry,” keigo whispered and you carded your fingers through his messy hair, smiling as you felt the tension start to leave his body.

“not going anywhere, promise. just wanted to get you a washcloth so we could clean you up a little bit. but i can wait. however long you need, love.” you pressed a kiss to keigo’s head, humming as you slowly rocked him. you figured this could happen, but you thought it was such a small chance, you didn’t really prepare for it. but it was hawks. your hawks, your birdie. you could adapt. you’d take care of him.

a while later, keigo’s grip started to release, and as soon as he was able, keigo pulled his hand away. you tutted at him and took his hand in yours, and you started to massage the hand that had been gripping your arm. keigo found himself staring at the spot he had grasped you, hurt you he’s sure, and you called his name.

“are you okay now?” keigo blinked at the question. “feel up for a shower to clean up?”

“you.. you’re worried about me still? i hurt you.”

“and i just spent god knows how long overstimulating you. probably a little painful, even if it felt good.” you tilted keigo’s head up and pressed a lingering kiss to his plush lips. “i told you, hawks. i care about you, i’m here to take care of you. as long as you’ll let me.” it was your turn to blush, your cheeks burning but you kept keigo’s gaze.

“keigo.” he found himself whispering. “name’s keigo.” you mouthed his name, whispered it to yourself and the prettiest shade of pink covered keigo’s cheeks. “if it’s not gonna be any of your little nicknames, i.. i’d prefer keigo outside of work.”

“well, keigo,” you smiled as you pulled his hand to your lips, kissing over every knuckle. “why don’t we get you cleaned up? then we can come back to bed, order some takeout for dinner? i can make breakfast for us in the morning,” you offered and keigo felt his heart flip in his chest at your offer.

“that sounds perfect.”

an hour later, you were cuddled in bed, keigo on his stomach, head on your stomach as his wing draped over you. his breath hit your stomach, soft puffs leaving his lips as he slept peacefully. you combed through his damp hair, occasionally running your hand down between his shoulder blades just to see his wings flutter and his breathing shake a little. a small smile graced his lips as he slept and you let your eyes close, a matching smile on your lips as you dozed off into the best sleep of your life. you could get used to this…

[soapsilly]

Bad Memories - Roronoa Zoro Imagine

Pairing: Roronoa Zoro x Reader

Spoilers for One Piece (?)

Summary: (Y/N), a black market dealer, begrudgingly joins the Straw Hats after having to admit to herself that a strong crew would help her reach her goal faster. However, being on a ship with the pirate hunter Roronoa Zoro brings back some old memories she'd rather not be reminded of.

Requests are closed

************************************************************************

"Oooooh, what is this?", Luffy reached out to the mysterious object that was displayed on one of the countless shelfs.

"If you touch it, you buy it", (Y/N) spoke up from where she was leaned over the counter, trying to figure out what it was the cyborg wanted from her.

Franky needed a very specific tool to modify parts of the Sunny. A tool he didn't have and didn't necessarily could get easily as it was classified as marine technology.

"That's a very unusualy request you got there", she furrowed her brows.

Nami knew what that meant - when vendors said something along those lines what they usually meant was 'that's gonna be price-y', but the red-head prided herself in being a pro in haggling down any price however high it may be.

"Listen, I know what that means. I also know that that's bullshit. So you better make us a good price because we're going to get that piece one way or another", the navigator tapped her finger against the counter top.

"Oh, that's not what I meant", the dealer shrugged, "I literally meant nobody ever asks me for those things. Most people don't even know they exist. I'm not trying to get rich here, however, I will get a reasonable price for it or you can go and find the tools you need somewhere else"

While the two were talking finance, Franky was already tinkering around with the newly attained pieces and Luffy was doing god knows what.

"Is that a Devil Fruit??", Luffy's voice reached them from somewhere out of the depths of the storage room.

"Yes, do you want it? I'll make you a good price", the dealer yelled back.

Within seconds the Rubberman was at their sides again.

"YES! Nami, please can we? Usopp would love that! Or Chopper!"

"Chopper already has a devil fruit power!", the red-head yelled back.

"Oh. Right. Then for Usopp!"

While the two of them startet arguing about whether or not they'd need another 'idiot' with devil fruit powers on the team a tall blonde guy almost kicked in the door to (Y/N)'s storage.

"We need to leave! The stupid marimo started a fight in the city and now a bunch of marines are here-", it seemed like the man wanted to say some more but stopped talking once he saw the woman behind the counter, "Oh, beautiful lady! Mon Amour! My name is Sanji and I'm-"

"Wait let me get this right... some dumbass from your crew starts a fight with the marines and the first thing you do IS RUN BACK TO MY WAREHOUSE?!", the dealer was furious, "You need to leave. Now!"

(Y/N) started to frantically pack together the most important things, so that once the marines should really try to barrel down her front door, she'd be set to make a swift exit out the back.

"Just come with us!", the Straw Hat exclaimed happily, "you have so much great stuff here! Having someone on the crew who can find all those things would be so cool"

"No", her voice was icy, "I've known you for thirty minutes and you already put my livelyhood at risk. I think I'll pass" - that there was a whole nother reason the dealer didn't want to join the notorious pirate crew, she decided to keep to herself.

From outside the voices and footsteps from what (Y/N) could only imagine were dozens and dozens of marines grew louder.

"We need to leave", Nami commanded, "Sanji take her stuff"

"Of course, Nami-swan~", the blonde did as he was told and grabbed the huge sack filled with all kinds of things from the dealers hands. Not a minute too late as there there was a loud knocking that disrupted the womans attempts of resistance.

The Straw Hat as well as the Cyborg already adopted their fighting stance when the navigator held them back yet again. (Y/N) asked herself, who it actually was that was in charge here, but she didn't mind as she wasn't particularly eager to have a battle with god knows how many marines in a confined space.

"Is there another way out?", she turned to (Y/N).

"Follow me"

************************************************************************

Once outside all they had to do was to leave the place without making a fuss - a task seemingly unmanagable for Monkey D. Luffy. They weren't even 30 feet away from the warehouse when Luffy's loud voice could be heard all over the place.

"Oi, those aren't even that many. We could've taken them!" - followed by the even louder 'clunk' that Nami's fist made when it made impact with his skull.

"Shut up and just run!", she yelled at him. And they did. Every now and then a low ranking marine officer would catch up with them but either Franky or Luffy or even sometimes (Y/N) herself would take care of that. It was when one of the captains came dangerously close to them that they had to worry.

When (Y/N) started to notice the blonde guy fall behind, struggling with carrying her belongings and fighting off the marines at the same time, she realized that those things needed to go.

"Hey! Drop the sack! It's slowing you down", she yelled over at him.

"No, no! It's fine!", he yelled back, "I only fight with my legs anyways! Your belongings are safe with me"

"Doesn't matter. Drop it. It's not worth the risk", she insisted.

"Are you sure?", Nami sounded shocked, "I saw what you had in the shop. That stuff is worth a fortune! Sanji, don't you dare!"

"I don't care!", the dealer yelled back, "I'll get new stuff. If it makes you happy, you can keep whatever you can carry. Drop. The. Sack!"

For a moment the tall man hesitated but then did as he was told. As soon as he dropped the added weight, he immediately spun into a roundhouse kick, hitting an approaching opponent directly in the head to give the group time to bring some space between them and their followers. When (Y/N) stopped abruptly and started running back to where her things were scattered around Nami was almost sure the other woman had come to her senses but (Y/N) went straight past the incredibly expensive looking jewelry, the intricate tools and even the devil fruit, that Luffy was begging Nami for. Instead she was frantically sorting through the depth of the now half-empty sack.

"What are you doing?", Nami screamed at her, "whatever you're looking for you better find it quick!"

The marines were quickly catching up but (Y/N) still hasn't found what she was looking for.

"Hah! Found it", she yelled but as she was getting up she came face to face with the vice-admiral. However, she didn't even have the time to react or make a game plan as a fist whizzed past her, sending the marine flying. As soon as the fist appeared, it disappeared again. (Y/N) had heard about the Straw Hat Luffy's rubber abilities but she never would've guessed that they'd save her ass one day. She didn't allowe herself the time to dwell on it as she was sure that this punch would merely slow the captain down.

When they finally reached the ship the rest of the crew was already waiting for their mates. As soon as everybody had boarded the Thousand Sunny, as (Y/N) had found out the ship was called, the cyborg used a maneuver called coup de burst, which catapulted them to safety.

Once everything settled down, it was time for the crew to introduce themselves.

"Oi, everybody! This is...", Luffy trailed off once he realized that he had no idea what the girl's name was.

"Oh um.. it's (Y/N)"

"Guys, this is (Y/N) and she's going to join our crew"

(Y/N) furrowed her brows, "I'm not! You saved me back there and I'm thankful but you're also the reason I was in that situation to begin with. So I think it evens out. Just drop me off on the next island or... just... anywhere is fine...", she grew quiet towards the end.

"What? No! Our crew is great I promise! We'll find the One Piece and I'll be pirate king!"

"I don't care", she really didn't want to be there.

But Luffy wasn't know for his ability to take no for an answer. And so he kept throwing new points and arguments at her to make her change her mind. She didn't know what it was that did the trick in the end. Was it his determination? Or the things she's read and heard about the crew? The things they already accomplished? She simply didn't know. What she did know, however, was that reaching her goal would become much easier with some powerful allies by her side.

"Great", Luffy sounded happy, "so let me introduce you to everybody. You already know Nami. She's our navigator. That cool cyborg is Franky. He's our shipwright. This", he pointed towards the tall guy, that Nami had called Sanji before, "is Sanji. He makes the best food you've ever eaten"

"What's your favourite meal (Y/N)-san? I'll cook it especially for you tonight - to celebrate you joining us. Another beautiful lady on the ship ~"

(Y/N) was a little unsure how to react to the cook's advances but sent him a polite smile regardless.

"Don't worry, he's always like this. You'll get used to it", Nami assured her, "and if you're smart, you'll even figure out how to use it to your advantage", she sent the other woman a wink.

The black market dealer didn't get to answer though as Luffy continued. (Y/N) largely drowned out the words - like the ship's doctor insulting their captain for calling him a good one or the sceleton man asking her for the colour of her panties. She'd get to know them soon enough anyways.

"So and that's - "

"The pirate hunter Roronoa Zoro", (Y/N) finished for the Straw Hat.

"Oh, you already know each other?", Nami raised an eyebrow.

"Your reputation precedes you", the woman answered almost... bitterly?

"Oooh looks like somebody has a fan", the long nosed guy - Usopp - started teasing the swordsman.

"I wouldn't say that", (Y/N) mumbled as she left the crew standing.

************************************************************************

"Hey, (Y/N)! Can I talk to you for a sec?", Nami walked up to (Y/N), who, at the moment, was sitting down near the railing watching the water.

The girl raised her brows to show the red-head she was listening, but remained silent for the time being.

"You know today, when you ran back for your stuff, I really thought you finally came back to your senses but you didn't go for all the valuables... why? All you saved was this... book?"

The other woman just shrugged, "I got what I wanted"

"At first I wasn't sure what it was, you were looking for but then I talked to Sanji and he told me he's seen that kind of book before. A devil fruit encyclopedia... Why is it so important to you that you couldn't leave it?"

"Listen, Nami. I'm sorry I put you all in danger but I needed that book"

And with that the black market dealer left the navigator standing.

"She's even worse than Robin", the red-head mumbled to herself.

************************************************************************

It's been a few weeks since (Y/N) joined the Straw Hats and for the most parts it's been uneventful. For the first week or so she preferred to keep to herself but it was Sanji especially that wouldn't accept no for an answer whenever he told her to come eat dinner with the crew. But even then she made sure to always sit at the far end of the table to bring the most distance between herself and him.

She hadn't spoken a single word to the swordsman since setting foot on the ship and she was thankful that he didn't seem to care about trying to either.

"Don't mind the stupid Marimo. He's a brute. He wouldn't even know how to talk to such a beautiful flower as yourself ~", Sanji would regularly tell her but she'd just send him a tight smile and change the topic.

At the moment, she was sitting on deck tinkering around with Franky. She wasn't the best at crafting but she knew the tools so playing his assistent wasn't the worst past-time.

"I'm glad we got that tool before the marines stormed your warehouse", the cyborg told her, "I'm gonna build us some suuuuper cool stuff with it"

(Y/N) was just about to hand him another wrench when Zoro passed them on his way to the crows nest. During her time there she noticed that the lookout kind of was his personal training space. Of course, everybody was welcome to use it but nobody spent as much time there as the pirate hunter so she made a mental note to always stay clear of it. Her eyes lingered on the taller man's back as he passed them.

"(Y/N)!", Franky's voice pulled her back to reality and she had to pull herself together to not drop the wrench she was holding. This couldn't keep going like that. If she got distracted during a fight things might end up ugly - she knew that much.

************************************************************************

"Come with me?", he held out his hand to her knowing exactly that his question was only a formality. There wasn't a chance in the world that (Y/N) would ever let him leave without her - or quite frankly the other way around.

"You're insanse", she laughed but grabbed his hand without hesitation. They've known each other since they were only children - it was never a question of if but rather of when they'd finally get together.

"But you know you love me", he grinned at her, pulling her into his chest for a playful kiss.

She woke up and for a moment she felt at peace with the world, wanting to turn around snuggling into her pillow again. The rhythmic sound of breathing in the room calming her into a state of betweent sleep and being awake. But then she remembered... These breathing sounds weren't his. In fact, it was all just a dream.

Confronted with the harshness of reality she didn't feel like sleeping anymore, afraid of yet another dream that would give her a false sense of familiarity. Instead she slipped into a cardigan and decided to get some fresh air.

Once outside on deck, she took a deep breath. She enjoyed how cold the air was in those morning hours. The sun was just starting to rise - not even enough to paint the sky in these pink and orange tones she found so pretty.

"Couldn't sleep again?", the gruff voice made her jump. It was the first time that Zoro had spoken to her since she joined the crew but that didn't mean she wasn't familiar with his voice. It was almost involuntarily that her ears almost instantly perked up and her heart started racing whenever he started speaking around her. He triggered her fight, flight, freeze instinct and to her demise it was always freeze.

"Had a bad night", her voice was coarse.

"Seems to happen often"

She furrowed her brows. What was his deal? As if he could read her mind, Zoro continued.

"Out of the last five weeks, I was on night watch twelve times. And you were awake for at least ten of those times. And those were only the times I noticed"

"I-", she swallowed, "Being on a ship again just brings back some memories I haven't thought about in a long time..."

She didn't know why she told Zoro of all people but she couldn't take it back now anymore anyways...

"You've been to sea before?"

She let out a dry, humorless laugh.

'I don't want to talk about it. At least not with you', she thought to herself.

What she said instead was, "My fiance was a captain - My captain to be specific"

Zoro raised his brows, "You were engaged?"

The memory was bittersweet. She smiled sadly. The swordfighter noticed how pretty she was eventhough her smile didn't reach her eyes.

"We were young", she shrugged.

"So it ended badly I take it?", there wasn't a hint of empathy in his voice. What did she expect? Getting involved with your captain rarely ends well.

"Let's talk about something else...", she knew Zoro's mind probably immediately went to heartbreak but if she had the chance, she'd do it all over again as long as he was with her.

"You've been avoiding me", he stated, "why?"

Zoro wasn't a fan of beating around the bush. Of course he had noticed that the girl went out of her way to never having to interact with him in any way. He didn't sweat it though. He wasn't desperate for a new friend. If there was a new team mate, so be it. Didn't mean they had to like each other. What he was curious about, however, was why she seemed to apprehensive about getting to know him.

"I guess I just didn't want to risk starting to like you", she shook her head knowing how ridiculous that sounded.

Zoro furrowed his brows. From all the possible answers he could've gotten, this wasn't one he'd have expected. He was almost a little offended now.

"You didn't seem to mind getting to know the others"

"That's different", she sighed. He noticed how exhausted she looked.

"You knew me when you first joined the crew", he continued.

"Doesn't the whole world know you by now? The Straw Hats are notorious"

He didn't take this for an answer.

"You know as good as me that this is something entirely different. What I don't know, however, is what I did to you"

"Of course, you don't", she laughed bitterly. She knew that she wasn't fair to him. She didn't expect him to remember but she couldn't help it. Zoro blinked a few times, trying to figure out what it was the girl was talking about.

She sighed, "Do you ever have any regrets about being a bounty hunter in the past?"

He had never thought about that but he slowly shook his head after thinking about her words for a few seconds. He still wasn't sure what she was on about but he wanted to understand.

"I don't believe in regret", he answered. There wasn't anything he could do about his past. Back then he never would've thought that he'd ever become a pirate himself after making a name for himself as the pirate hunter Roronoa Zoro but what happened happend. He tried not to rack his brains over it.

"Well, I do", she mused.

"(Y/N)", he wanted to tell her to just tell him what's going on but hesitated once he saw how she tensed up when her name left his lips. He almost felt bad for her, she looked so helpless. It wasn't like him to feel like that but something felt different about this situation.

"Nomi Malik", she sighed, "I don't suppose the name rings a bell..."

At first, Zoro wasn't sure who she was talking about. She could see his eyes moving trying to remember but then his brows creased just the tiniest bit. He did remember. Nomi Malik was one of the last pirates he caught before becoming one himself.

"Yes, I remember. Devil Fruit User... not very strong though. What about him?"

His words stung. They were true, of course they were. And then again they weren't. Malik wasn't weak. He had a hefty bounty on his head - otherwise Zoro wouldn't have wasted his time on him and his crew but the swordsman was extremely skilled - even before he became one of the Straw Hat Pirates. She didn't blame him stating the obvious though. When she visibly struggled to find the right words, he continued.

"Did you know him?"

'That's an understatement', she thought to herself.

Instead, she just nodded. He stayed quiet waiting for her to continue. He noticed the sun was starting to rise, casting a golden hue upon her features.

"We grew up together", she turned to look towards the horizon, "I can't remember a time when he wasn't there... well, except for now, of course..." - she got quiet upon the realization - "when he asked me to join him, it wasn't even a question"

Zoro raised his brows. He knew he didn't remember every single person he ever hunted down but he was sure that (Y/N) was never one of them.

"If you were part of his crew...", he tried to vocalize his thoughts.

"Then why didn't you catch me along with the rest of his crew?", she finished his question for him, "well, I hadn't had a bounty back then. I was completely irrelevant to you"

"So, where's he now? Impel Down? You know Luffy broke half of the inmates out a few years ago... He could be out there somewhere...", Zoro shrugged. What had happened to her was unfortunate but he just did what he had to do to survive. To say he felt bad would be a lie.

The girl opposite of him slowly shook her head though, "Wanted dead or alive...". She emphazised the word to show him that the marine truly didn't care. Either option was fine with them as long as there was a pirate less roaming the sea.

The swordsman was taken aback. What reason would the marines have to do this? They had imprisoned pirated way more powerful than Nomi's crew.

"No, that-"

"I was there", she cut him off, "I followed you when you handed them over. Right outside the marine base"

The smile returned on her face as she stared off somewhere into the distance.

"You were incredibly skilled even back then... of course there's no comparison to now... after your training with Mihawk, I mean"

Zoro knew he was good but the praise didn't feel as great as he was used to. At the moment, the only thing he felt was a weight upon his chest. He never felt remorse for his enemies but he was also never confronted with their surviving loved ones before. Most people thought of Zoro as cruel, heartless, a brute but that wasn't necessarily true. There were people he cared about - he just didn't show it. Besides, he knew how it felt like to lose someone.

"What happened?", he asked her, still not sure how thinks could've escalated.

"Malik was a lot like Luffy in a sense. Adventurous, fun-loving, great leader - stubborn though. There was no way he'd let himself and his crew get captured without a fight. He became a pirate for freedom. To see the world. He couldn't have that behind bars. I don't think he seriously thought he'd stand a chance. It was just his- I mean our crew against the whole base"

She made her way over the battlefield towards her lover. Slow. Too slow for her liking. For every yard she made she had to fight off two or three marines. Granted, most of them were only low ranking officers but there were too many for her liking. But for a moment things looked like they were turning in their favour - or at least favourable enough. Starting a fight was smart. If they played their chances right they could flee in the commotion.

From across the battlefield (Y/N)'s and Malik's eyes met. He sent her a darin wink looking as handsome as ever. She couldn't help but let out a hearty laugh. Only her daredevil of a boyfriend could make this high stress situation somewhat romantic. 'I love you', he mouthed over to her but she didn't get the chance to answer anymore as a new wave of marines stormed the plaza in front of the base.

As more and more marines flooded the place it became harder and harder for (Y/N) and her crew to hold out against their attacks. When the first one of their crewmate's bodies hit the ground (Y/N) knew there would be no fleeing. She loved how loyal her lover was. Loyal to her and to his crew. But this also meant that this fight would have to end - one way or another.

The blood was rushing in her ears as (Y/N) witnessed more and more of her crewmates being critcally hit. Her friends. People she grew up with. Good people. She stood still for a moment. She saw Malik's first mate lying on the ground a few feet ahead of her. She and him used to play cards together. It was him who taught her the rules of the game and it was her who showed him how to cheat people out of their money by bending even those rules. Next to her their navigator crashed to the floor. (Y/N) knew him since she was a little girl. He always knew the best routes and alleys to get away from the vendors that would chase after them when they yet again decided to steal candies and little toys from them. Nobody knew their little village as good as him. She felt helpless - lightheaded almost - but she didn't have the luxury of taking the time to mourn her friends as she had to focus on getting ahead. Closer towards were Malik was fighting against a vice-admiral at the moment.

Her captain was a devil fruit user but his powers didn't seem to have any effect on the vice-admiral. (Y/N) knew this could mean one thing only - this guy's Haki was way stronger than Malik's. She knew she needed to get to them. She was aware that she couldn't be of much help, even without his devil fruit powers Malik was much stronger than her but whatever they did, they did it together.

She was still busy fighting several marines when a loud slashing sound followed by a muffled scream cut through the air. (Y/N)'s head whipped around just in time to see Malik's body hit the floor as well now. After the vice-admiral made sure the other male wasn't in any shape to get up and continue the fight, he just left him there to bleed out and die.

The ringing sound in (Y/N)'s ears was back and everything seemed as if it were in slow motion. As fast as her legs would carry her she hurried towards were her lover was lying in the dirt - the fight forgotten. A patch of his own blood staining his clothes growing bigger and bigger by the minute.

"Malik!", she screamed his name, tears already forming in her eyes. As she finally reached him, she wasted no time immediately sliding on her knees pressing her hands on the deep wound on his torso.

"It's okay now. I'm here. It's going to be okay", she babbled probably more to soothe herself rather than the dying love of her life beneath her.

"Baby... Ba-baby, listen. You need to leave", eventhough she could see in how much pain he was, the man - her captain - still send her a reassuring smile. His teeth and lips were already coloured red from his own blood but he still looked so incredibly handsome to her. He was still her Malik.

"What? No! Why would I do that? I'm not leaving you", the tears were now streaming freely down her face.

"You don't have a bounty. They don't even know who you are yet. This is your only chance. Please, I'm begging you. Leave"

How come all of them had to die while (Y/N), who was less strong - less experienced - got to live? It didn't seem fair to her. She shook her head making the tears fall everywhere from the motion. She wouldn't leave. If her whole crew, her captain, the man she loved with all her heart had to die, she'd go with them.

"What are you saying there?", she smiled through the tears, "We're in this together. I'm not leaving. I'm not", she repated the last phrase over and over again. Malik tried to gently interrupt her ramble but she wouldn't have it. It was almost like she didn't even hear him. It was only when he finally raised his voice that she fell silent and really listened to what he was saying.

"I don't have much time left, so listen to me now. I'm still your captain so you gotta do what I tell you", he tried to sound serious but failed knowing that their relationship has always been grounds for teasing within the whole crew and even among themselves. Even now, whilst being in pain and bleeding out, he never lost his happy spirit she fell in love with. She was reminded of the reality of the situation when his happy laugh soon turned into a hurtful cough, "I love you. I've loved you forever. And I always will. I'm sorry I never got to make you my wife. I'm sorry for being too stubborn. I'm sorry for everything"

There's so much she wanted to tell him. That there was nothing to be sorry about. That she'd do it all again. That she loved him more than anything. But all she could do was sob and put pressure on his wound to try and slow down the bleeding.

"Please. You need to leave now. I'll be fine - it's like going to sleep. It's easy. But- but I need you to be fine as well", he nodded up at her as she felt his hands on top of hers moving them away, releasing the pressure she was putting on the lethal wound on his torso. As soon as her hands left their place the blood started gushing and spilling over his body, making the pool of blood he was lying in rapidly increase in size. She cupped his face with one of her hands, stroking through his hair with the other, staining both in the process. Still crying she leaned down and pressed one last kiss on his lips that were already starting to become cold from the blood loss. The kiss tasted like the blend of her tears and his blood - salty and like iron. For a moment only him and her mattered. She knew those were the last moments that she'd ever have with her lover and she cherished every second of it.

A loud crash pulled her back to reality. The fight was lost and she knew she needed to get away. She took one last look at the love of her life before standing up and leaving him there - along with a piece of herself.

"I really miss him...", her voice grew thick and she swallowed to pull herself together. She wasn't the same since that day. She struggled with those memories. In fact, she didn't know which ones were worse - the happy memories from her dream or rather those painful ones. (Y/N) avoided thinking about it too much - she was plagued by guilt ever since she got to live while others had to die, "I had to leave the bodies there... They - the marine I mean - they didn't even bury them properly. They were just all thrown in some kind of unmarked mass grave or something... like... like a bunch of dogs"

Zoro didn't know what to say. The way the girl sat before him, he could tell how painful this all was to her and he felt bad that he was the reason for it. Contrary to popular belief, Zoro wasn't as clueless as most people thought. Most of the time he simply didn't care to pay enough attention but right now he had listened to every single word that left her lips and yet had still no idea what to say. He was truly lost for words.

"I'm... sorry", as soon as Zoro spoke the words he realized how foolish they sounded. Almost as if to apologize for eating the last desert or borrowing something without asking beforehand - not for indirectly being responsible for the death of a loved one. He wanted to tell her that he too knows how it feels to lose someone. That he never meant for that to happen but instead he just remained silent.

She sighed and quickly wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes with the palms of her hands.

"I have no ill will towards you. You only did what you had to do to survive. It's a dog eat dog world out there. I know this as good as you", she sent him a shaky smile, "You didn't kill him. It was his decision to fight. It's just... seeing you here again. Everyday. It brings back memories. I see you and I think of him. I can't help it. I know it's not fair to you but that's the only way I know how to cope at the moment", she shrugged like it wasn't that big of a deal but her inability to hold his gaze for even a second showed how she truly felt.

The morning sun was now fully out and slowly the other Straw Hats started to fill the deck - starting with Sanji, who was usually the first to get up everyday to prepare breakfast for the whole crew. (Y/N) decided to join him like most days. She was awake anyways so preparing breakfast with Sanji became like her little morning ritual. She sent Zoro a small smile before she left him sitting there alone with his thoughts.

************************************************************************

Zoro didn't show up for breakfast that day. (Y/N) was thankful for it. That morning was emotionally draining for her but there was also something else... It was the first time she's ever spoken about what had happened back then and apart from the vulnerability it felt good to properly allow herself to think of her old friends and her former lover again. She did allow herself to mourn them right after it happened but the guilt was overwhelming and most of the time she wished for herself to be dead as well. To combat those feelings she abandoned the memories of her old crew altogether - the hurtful ones as well as the happy ones - until she didn't think about them at all anymore. Of course, she never forgot them. She still had a goal to reach, but she just didn't allow herself to indulge in those memories anymore in fear of the emptiness inside of her returning. Today, was different though. Talking to Zoro about everything, re-living the situation hurt, but now that she was sitting in the dining area sorrounded by her new crew - that familiar hopelessness never came.

"Oi, where's Zoro?", Luffy spoke through a mouth-full of food.

"It was his turn with night watch duty tonight. He's probably catching up on sleep", Dr. Chopper explained. He was right. It wasn't unusual for the night guards to be absent during breakfast in the morning - especially for Zoro, who took any opportunity he could to squeeze in a good nap whenever he got the chance - but Sanji would usually make sure that whoever's turn it was would eat first and then go to bed.

"Fine by me", the captain laughed happily as he grabbed another stack of food from across the table, "that mean I get to eat Zoro's portion then"

(Y/N) silently agreed with the Straw Hat, not minding the swordfighter's absence at all. It was Sanji that wasn't having any of it though.

"Who does he think he is? (Y/N)-san and I spent all this time preparing this food. Cooking, frying, baking... And this stupid marimo doesn't even show up? Doesn't he know wasting food is a cardinal sin in my kitchen?"

"Oi, Sanji calm down. I don't think any food is going to wast", (Y/N) motioned to Luffy, who grabbed yet another set of plates, shoving everything in his mouth at once, "besides, we've all skipped breakfast before..."

Her words had the desired effect and the cook did indeed shut up about Zoro, so that she could finally enjoy the rest of her food in peace without having to worry about the moss head.

************************************************************************

After breakfast (Y/N) decided to spend some time with the others, doing chores, training and generally enjoying the day. The sun was out and Nami decided this was the perfect weather to sunbathe a little. And so (Y/N) found herself along with Nami and Robin, who preffered to read under a parasol, on deck soaking up the sun whilst being served and taken care off by Sanji. (Y/N) could've done without the overbearing cook bringing them iced tea and little snacks every few minutes but Nami insisted that he enjoyed being of service so they should just lean back and enjoy - which she eventually did.

It was only when Zoro did not show up for dinner either that she realized that (Y/N) hadn't seen the swordsman at all that day after their talk in the wee hours of the morning. For a moment she pondered if she should fix him a plate and bring it up to the crows nest, so that he didn't have to go hungry but then quickly decided against it. If he didn't want to see her, she wouldn't want to make him uncomfortable by forcing herself on him. 'He'll surely wander into the kitchen after dinner is finished and fetch himself some leftovers', she thought to herself, 'And tomorrow everything will be back to normal'

But the next morning Zoro still didn't show up for breakfast. Or dinner. Or the breakfast the morning after.

"Hey, Usopp... who's turn was it to keep night watch ?", she furrowed her brows. Did the swordfighter switch with Nami again in exchange for some extra allowance so that he could buy more booze during their next errand run? It was a win-win situation for the both of them. Nami got to have her 'much needed beauty-sleep' whilst Zoro could earn some money on the side. He usually slept during guard duty anyways, relying on his instincts to kick in should something or rather someone try to start shit. She halted for a second, when did she get to know him that well?

"Uh? Franky's I think, why?", the long-nosed sniper answered her but was quickly dimissed by a hand gesture from the black market dealer. This was weird... Was he mad at her now?

Ever since that morning with Zoro, she slept well - great actually. Granted, it was a dreamless sleep but she preferred it like this at that moment in time. When she awoke in the morning, she realized that she had slept in. A little disgruntled about nobody waking her for breakfast she made her way into the dining area.

She didn't expect to find the swordsman sitting there. Their talk was now about a week ago and still he had somehow successfully managed to avoid her at all costs. She didn't see him during mealtime. She didn't see him roaming the ship. He didn't even nap at his usual spots, whenever (Y/N) was nearby. (Y/N) didn't know how to feel about it. There definitely was a feeling in her chest and she definitely knew that it wasn't a good feeling but she couldn't quite tell what it was... Was it guilt? Guilt for dumping all her trauma onto him? Annoyance that it was now him that somehow couldn't stand even being in the same space as her? No... it was something else entirely... Whatever it was, she didn't like it. Talking to him - speaking her feelings - she hadn't felt so at peace in ages and she was thankful for the opportunity and now it felt like she created herself another problem.

When she entered the dining area, several heads turned to her, greeting her, teasing her for sleeping in but (Y/N) only had eyes for a certain mosshead at the very head of the table. Her heart involuntarily skipped a beat. She was glad to see him - a thought for which she would've bitten her own tongue a week ago. Maybe she was simply over-thinking and everything could go back to normal now...

Zoro however had other plans as he slowly lowered the cup he was holding, placing it back on the table, getting up in the process.

"Where do you think you're going?", Sanji started but the pirate hunter didn't even stop walking.

" 'M full", he mumbled as he passed the girl that was still standing in the doorway.

"Zoro... you don't-", she tried to reason with him, still in disbelief about what she was seeing but he didn't acknowledge her.

Luffy was already all over Zoro's leftover whilst Sanji was still raging about there being leftovers at all when (Y/N), who hadn't moved an inch, too shocked by what just had happened, finally spoke up - although more to herself, "I'm not hungry"

With that she turned on her heel leaving the Straw Hats sitting there perplexed about what it was they had just witnessed.

"What was that?", Usopp asked no emotion on his face or in his voice.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say relationship troubles", Nami answered not enjoying the thought of not knowing about what was up with those two. Little did she know that neither (Y/N) nor Zoro had any idea themselves. However from then on, neither of them would show up where they expected the other to be present aswell, which - to be fair - on a ship could be anytime or anywhere, so they mostly stuck to themselves. Zoro in the crowsnest and (Y/N) in the aquarium.

************************************************************************

Yet another fight. Why did these damn Straw Hats always have to get themselves into some kind of trouble? (Y/N) had heard about the G-5 marines before. She heard horror stories about the marines of this branch being insane and needlessly cruel, torturing pirates for fun, killing them without reason but (Y/N) didn't dwell on it. She learned years ago to not fear death anymore but even if she did, there wouldn't be much reason for it. The Straw Hats really were as strong as the people in the bars were telling themselves behind their hands whenever they entered the establishment.

She had never seen anybody fight the way Luffy did, using Haki and his devil fruit power almost effortlessly. If she wasn't so preoccupied with the marines she was fighting off, she'd just stand there and watch her captain fight the vice-admiral that the people called Smoker the White Hunter. Neither of them holding back on their attacks.

But it wasn't only Luffy, who was extremely powerful. She quickly realized that every single one of the crew could hold their own in a fight, making her scramble to prover her worth as well. She'd be damned if someone had to rescue her during their first real brawl.

She had to admit seeing Zoro fight, triggered some uneasy feelings she quickly had to abandon to the back of her mind. He was the only one whom she had seen fight before but last time they unfortunately weren't on the same side. Of course, he greatly improved from back then to now - she was glad she didn't have to stand before him on the battlefield. Fighting almost seemed to be fun to him but not in a way that she had seen with Luffy or even Malik. It wasn't a carefree happiness. She heard people talk about the pirate hunter as if he wasn't fully human - part demon even - but she always dismissed these rumours as drunken tavern talk nothing more, nothing less but now (Y/N) knew what it was they were talking about. If it weren't for the semi-friendly competition between him and Sanji, she'd be more concerned but as the two of them were at each others throat whenever they had a free minute, she figured it was normal.

Zoro must've struck down close to double the amount of marines that the rest of the crew had managed to defeat in the same time when he suddenly stopped, his devilish demenour forgotten. (Y/N) forrowed her brows, trying to understand what was going on over there. Who was that woman facing Zoro and why was he not fighting her? She knew Sanji never kicked a lady but (Y/N) has seen Zoro fight women before. So why was he not moving?

As the two of them were in the middle of what seemed to be a heated discussion in which the female captain tried to attack the green-headed fighter to get him to fight her, (Y/N) noticed that Zoro was so busy deflecting her hits that he didn't even noticed two marines wildly starting an attack from behind.

With a few long strides, (Y/N) stood between the pirate hunter and his attackers, striking them down in the process.

"What the fuck is wrong with you? You should've seen that coming!", she yelled at him already finding herself in the next one on one fight. It was as if the pirate hunter was snapped out of his daze as he quickly made an exit, leaving the marine captain behind.

************************************************************************

"Hey", he walked up to her where she was sitting gazing at the surface of the water. The sun had already started to set and it was a bit chilly outside, so it was only the two of them on deck of the Sunny. (Y/N) couldn't help but to be reminded of the last time the both of them were alone out there, feeling at peace and strangely familiar with the mosshead.

"I saved your ass out there today", she told him, still not taking her eyes off of the water, "who was she? The marine captain with the glasses I mean"

Zoro hesitated for a moment. He didn't like talking about personal stuff. That was nobody's business anyways but she had opened up to him as well. She trusted him with her trauma, so maybe he should do so as well? Before he could make a decision, the dealer interrupted his thoughts.

"You could've easily taken her. I've watched her - she's good... but now that good", she was now looking at him, Zoro couldn't quite read the look on her face, "Listen, you do you but if we really are a crew I need to know that I can trust you..."

The fighter sighed but ultimately decided to tell (Y/N) all about Kuina, their goal and his promise to her. When he finished it was him that couldn't stand to hold her gaze anymore.

"That's very noble of you - holding on to your promise after all those years, I mean", she sent him a soft smile. Zoro noticed that she didn't seem to have any problems finding the right words. She didn't just stutter out an 'I'm sorry' for lack of a better idea.

The mosshead shrugged. Not even know he knew what to say to properly portray why becoming the strongest was so important to him.

"I understand, you know?", she continued, "I have a goal too. It's not as honourable as yours and it's entirely selfish to be honest but it's the reason I've become a black market dealer and just between the both of us? It's also the only reason I joined you guys", she lowered her voice for the last part eventhough she knew nobody could hear them.

Zoro was still hung up on her calling him honourable. That word was the last thing he would've described himself.

"What is your goal?", his voice was deep, no inflections, but he was genuinely interested.

She laughed to herself embarrassed about her ambitions but then decided to keep talking - albeit without looking at him, "I've never talked about this to anybody... When Malik died I swore to myself I'd find his devil fruit. I've been looking for years. Built up an underground trading network, buying and selling all kinds of useless junk so that I always have the funds to pay for should my vendors some day offer me the right one. No luck so far"

Zoro blinked a few times. He remembered Nomi's devil fruit. Whoever ate the fruit gained the ability to plant visions in their enemies heads gaining an advantage in combat situations but...

"Here in the New World many - if not all - people have Haki. You'd have to be very strong to overcome that", he tried to be gentle with his delivery, not wanting to insult her by implying that she'd be too weak to be a devil fruit user. She turned to fully face him now.

"Oh, I know...", she paused for a moment, seemingly searching for the right words, "it's just - I couldn't stand the thought of anybody else having his fruit. Being on the battlefield and having to fight against something that was such a core component of what made him him"

"So you just want to have it?"

She shrugged, "Don't tell Luffy I said that but I always thought a pirate that can't swim is a little foolish anyways. A recipe for disaster really"

For a moment the two just looked at each other but then the girl broke out in a huge grin. He hadn't seen her smile properly ever since she joined the crew. She was friendly to everybody - sans him of course - but she was never really happy. She tried to stop it by biting her lip but that made it only more charming to him.

"You saved me today", he dead-panned, looking down at her not knowing how to show his grattitude as he wasn't used to being saved. It was usually him that did the saving.

"I did"

"Why? I thought my presence brings back bad memories", his voice was low barely but a whisper.

"That doesn't mean I want you to die, you idiot", she sounded almost offended by his suggestion, "You've been avoiding me", she continued, now wanting some answers for herself.

"I didn't want you to be forced to eat at the same table with me. All those things that happened to you..."

She looked at him with a sad expression on her face placing a hand on his forearm. Usually the swordsman would've pulled his arm away but he just let her, "Zoro, I've told you before I don't blame you for what happened"

"Even if that were true, you said seeing me reminded you of what happened. So I stayed away"

She tried to find the right words to express her feelings. On one hand she felt incredibly guilty that he felt he needed to isolate himself from his crew - his nakama - just so that she would feel better and on the other hand she wanted to yell at him that he was being stupid. That he did too much. But there was also another feeling inside (Y/N)'s chest. Was it thankfulness? He had shown her that her feelings and comfort was in this moment more important to him than his own.

Zoro didn't know what to expect now. Did he do too much? Why was he so bad at interpreting people's emotions?? Much to his surprise the girl leapt into his arms, though, hugging him tightly. At first, he was a little overwhelmed but soon hugged her back.

"Thank you, Zoro", she mumbled into his shoulder, where her face was buried.

"I- Don't mention it...", he decided to tighten his grip around her waist a little, "You said- that you didn't want to risk starting to like me-"

He couldn't even finish what he was trying to say as the woman who was comfortably nestled in his arms wiggled and struggled to free herself from his grip. Why did he say that? He scolded himself. Why would he remind her of her resolution to keep her distance. There were a thousand thoughts rushing through his head - which would've been a lot for any person, but was even more especialy for Zoro, who usually didn't think much about things. But maybe that was the problem, he told himself. At least he had a good poker face...

"Zoro, look at me", she put both her hands on either side of his face to make sure he'd actually look at her, "it's a little late for that... I like you already"

"You- you do?", the mosshead couldn't help but to sound surprised.

"Yep", she popped the 'p', Zoro's eye flickered down to her lips for just the fraction of a second. He hoped that she didn't notice but no such luck.

"I think I've liked you since the first time we talked, I just didn't realize it until you started avoiding me", she leaned in closer, sliding her hands from the sides of his face to the back of his neck. He could feel her breath on his lips now as she voice was barely above a whisper, "Can I kiss you?"

He didn't even answer. Instead he leaned down and pressed his lips onto hers and it didn't take long for (Y/N) to return the kiss. It wasn't hungry or passionate. They didn't make out. It was sweet and it was full of emotions.

"So that's what you two have been doing during mealtime, huh?"

The two of them jumped apart as they heard Usopp's voice.

"And here I was starting to think the two of you disliked each other", Nami added.

(Y/N) and Zoro shared a look trying to gauge how the other wanted to handle this.

"If you only knew..."

************************************************************************

Epilogue

It's been a few weeks since Usopp and Nami caught the two of them on deck. They both decided to let them believe whatever they thought they deduced on the spot. (Y/N) was happy either way. Of course, she would never be able to forget what had happened in front of that marine base a few years back - she didn't even want to forget - but she decided it was time for her to move one. She knew Malik would want that for her. And whenever she wandered the deck in the wee hours of the morning now it was not because she was plaqued by the bad memories, but solely because she decided to keep the green-headed swordfighter company and sit by the water and talk, daydream and watch the sea.

[cryinhell]

so no one asked for this, but here's a post about my favorite Hazbin Hotel ships ( romantic and platonic) and what I hope they explore with them in the show.

1) Huskerdust/Angelhusk/Casino Hearts (Romantic)

Obviously, I got to start with my favorite romantic pairing in the fandom. Angel and Husk are my favorite characters in the HelluvaVerse, and both mean a lot to me. They are both old men born around the same time with a lot in common, and I know they would be close buds. From everything we have gotten in canon( fake instagrams which are not canon but in character, the fun hunicast streams, viv admitting to shipping them and allowing huskerdust into the merch, the fact that Husk was made to be Angel's bestie, and a lot of unnecessary information I know lmao, I do not doubt these two will be canon. I can't wait to see their friendship grow and all the trials and tribulations they will go through to become better for themselves and each other. And hopefully, the fun shenanigans that they do because I love me some shenanigans.

2) RadioHusk (Platonic)

Okay, so Husk's relationships with everyone interests me, but this one is probably the most after AngelHusk. It's clear these two have a past and that Alastor is comfortable enough with Husk to be incredibly annoying around him. Alastor is Husk's boss and most likely owns his soul, but there's also a strange bond between them I really want explored. I think Al loves Husk in a platonic and weird way because he's most likely his best friend, but Alastor may not be able to always express this normally. Husk is a good guy and a bit complacent, so he just deals with this shitheads nonsense and doesn't seem to fear him. Maybe there's some fucked up things between them and maybe their friendships has cons and pros. I'm not entirely sure, but I can't wait to find out

3) Angel and Vaggie (Platonic)

Okay, most of these are platonic ships, but whatever friendships are important. I love these two judgemental assholes and the way they judge people together. It truly is gay and lesbian solidarity, heh. They are gonna be the best of frienemies, and I can't wait for their relationship to be explored.

4) Voxval (Romantic)

Okay, I hate these bastards with a burning passion, but that doesn't mean their relationship does not interest me. Vox, Val, and Velvette are going to be the main villains of Hazbin Hotel, and without knowing too much about them, I'm excited. I want to know how Val and Vox are going to be as a couple. Since the instagram accounts are not canon, it is hard to tell if Val will be abusive or not. This is a possibility since the accounts seemed to be in character, but I want a different approach. I think it would be interesting for these two to genuinely love and respect each other and no one else. To see themselves as the true rightful kings of Hell and work together to destroy and belittle whoever they deem below them. It's an interesting dynamic that I prefer more than just "Val is abusive to poor baby Vox" cause Vox is also evil, and I want him to do evil shit.

5) Chaggie (Romantic)

There's not much to say about these two. I just think they are cute, and I want to see more of them.

6) The Hazbin Gang (Platonic)

And lastly, I can't wait to see how all of these fuckers get along and interact. As a group, I'm sure they will be very entertaining and I will enjoy every minute of it. Also, I am including Pentious because I know he's part of the main cast now, and I love that. Can't wait for these idiots to try and make this hotel work and hopefully grow together in the process.

[vladdyissues]

I don't know how you do it, Dude, I'm afraid to say that I'm attracted to pompous pep since I know it's wrong to ship a minor and an adult, People are cruel to death, Nobody knows what I like, I hide among the anonymous messages of the internet, Sometimes I see people like you who have their account free mind, People talk very badly about accounts like you, even putting them in places in the fandom to talk badly about them, Fear runs through me, I want to draw pompous Pep, Maybe I'm not attracted to the sexual, But I really feel like it's wrong and it hurts me

You've been at this for a while, right? Your account is full of pompous Pep (I secretly love your account), How did you manage to have the courage to show yourself?, People look at you badly, say bad things, that you are a sick pedophile and that...How do you achieve this without fear???, are you so brave or god 😭

1️⃣ I'm from old school fandom—pre-Twitter, pre-AO3, pre-Internet-as-we-now-know-it. I've learned to not give a fuck about what stupid, ignorant, uninformed people say on the Internet.

2️⃣ It's not my job to educate or "convert" people who disagree with me. I'm not a missionary. I'm here to have fun, and no one is going to spoil that for me.

3️⃣ I—and you, and anyone else reading this—don't owe anyone on the Internet an explanation, a reason, or any kind of justification for writing stories or drawing pictures of fictional cartoon characters smooching. (It's all so silly, honestly. I have real things to care about, like bills and pets and laundry. I envy people who have nothing to stress about except ink and paint from a 20-year-old Nickelodeon show.)

4️⃣ The media—specifically, the fictional entertainment—we enjoy is not a reflection of our humanity, morality, or an indication of our personal beliefs. If that were true, the police would be arresting authors like Stephen King and George RR Martin for writing about underage sex and incest and gore, as well as anyone who enjoys their works.

You know who does believe that reading something will "pervert" you, or that enjoying "dark things" like murder and violence and age gap ships means you must secretly be committing those things in real life? Fascists. Conservatives. Right-wing nationalist fundamentalist Christian types. People who want to ban queer books from libraries and call anyone who disagrees with them "pedophiles" and "groomers". Remember that the next time you see one of these fandom cops screeching about how so-and-so is a "pedo" because they ship two cartoons. These are people on the wrong side of history. They're anti-intellectual, anti-education, and pro-censorship. Get away from them as fast as you can.

Anon, if it seems like a lot of your friends (or the people you're around) are hating on something you want to enjoy and making you feel unsafe to talk about the things you like, then you need to find better friends. Leave them. Block them. Add their usernames to your content filters so you never have to see their ugly, hateful opinions ever again. You don't need that kind of negativity in your life, especially here on Tumblr, where we're all trying to find things that make us happy and celebrate others' creative works. Life's too short to hang around shitty people 💩

[chaifootsteps]

A lot of the Angel dust SA conversation makes more sense when you understand that the people more critical of his writing are people who wanted a respectful depiction of abuse, and the more defensive types (not ALL to be clear, but the rabid defenders seem to be this way) read Hazbin hotel like an edgy noncon whump fic on AO3 and not a semi-professionally made show on a streaming service that children regularly consume.

Because the amount of times I’ve seen fans go from “Raph has a CNC kink (he doesn’t” to “angelval is CNC” is frustrating and kind of fucking scary lol. I used to read noncon fics when dealing with abuse and I noticed a lot of noncon fic writers will have characters go through a very graphic and descriptive rape and then follow it up with like. Two sentences of comfort without really solving the issue and that’s how Angel dust’s writing feels to me and why I think fans are so unable to see the issue with his writing.

Like the pro/anti ship/ problematic fic whatever discourse doesn’t work here because we’re talking about tv shows and not fanfiction on a niche website. But they don’t understand that because they (and Vivziepop honestly) views this series like one major fanfiction.

God, this is such a huge problem with Viv and her fans, but also with fandom in general.

Professional studios and content creators are not your fandom buddies on AO3, and they can and should be held to different stands.