#the shuggy soulmate mark au

[the-obnoxious-sibling]

while i’m thinking of soulmate aus…

just, please imagine:

roguetown breakup happens as per canon, emotions are felt, tears shed, etc. etc., but the further out they are from that day, the more both shanks and buggy think to themselves that it was the right call. that guy wants to be a very different kind of pirate from me, if we were on the same ship i’d never get to do [xyz], it hurt a lot but this was for the best.

and then they turn eighteen and get a literal Message From The Universe that, uh, nope! that was the love of your life right there, actually! y’all fucked up!

buggy: well fuck you too, universe shanks: …either my life peaked at fourteen, or i’m gonna see buggy again someday. :-)

[the-obnoxious-sibling]

…yeah, those bad brain weeks really kicked my ass in may. lost my streak, though we got to 178 days before i gave up even trying for the streak fairy. well, all i can do is start fresh, and hopefully do better this time.

words and days breakdown is as follows:

[redacted] for midydoof: 1,516 words on one day

the near miss fics: about 6,000 words across four days

soulmate mark au: 1,522 words on one day

the z-t-k thing: 1,505 words on one day

911 miscellany: about 2,290 words across two days

i’m not telling y’all anything about the redacted fic. :-) if it comes together properly, you’ll get to read it sooner or later.

the near miss stuff was half edits/added material for ao3 posting and half poking away at the shanks pov stuff. i really have to do a canon reread of red-haired pirates stuff before i tackle some of the earlier parts of his story but i don’t wanna. though maybe that was just the bad brain days talking, idk.

then… you can see how i was flailing around trying to write anything towards the end there, pulling out an easy au that i could worldbuild about for ages, then revisiting a fic i think i last touched in 2017? (when did the tashigi punk hazard stuff get animated?) and then going so far as to attempt a brand new fandom for me, which… i really don’t think i know those characters well enough to write anything good, but i did have some fun.

you can’t really do workplace antics and romcom shenanigans in one piece, not unless you’re doing the kind of mundane au i’m not really interested in, but they’re both easy to do with 911 since it is a mundane, if deeply unrealistic and dramatic, setting.

[the-obnoxious-sibling]

Never Have I Ever written a soulmate AU

(the ask box meme)

i love soulmate aus, but especially edge case stuff—first words soulmate marks made complicated by time travel (see the c&dp fic below), opt-in soulmate aus where circumstances mean one of the pair couldn't or wouldn't opt-in until late in life (see wait, i never posted that. watch the movie timer instead)—and the worldbuilding!

like, i feel like everyone and their cousin has done "they weren't gay, they were as close as brothers"-style homophobia around historical same-sex soulmates, but what about aspec soulmates? what about being disabled in a way that should prevent you from perceiving the signal that someone is your soulmate? and also things like: if you can't see color until you meet your soulmate, how does that impact language? art? the designed world??

anyway, yeah. one of my favorite favorite tropes! but most of my takes on it are too embarrassingly idficcy for me to bear to post, or they're all concept no story, so all i can provide as far as links to published examples go are:

ringmates, a couple mcu fics about a type of soulmate mark i made up (matching ring-shaped markings!) that require regular physical contact to maintain them. (it's a metaphor for the way relationships also take work to maintain them, you see.) ambiguous whether the ships are romantic or queerplatonic because that's something i was thinking about a lot at the time.

the very creatively named uncanny soulmates au, which exists because i read this post about deadpool & cable: split second in 2016 and thought 'is anyone gonna write this?' circa 2018, it was still unwritten, so… what's posted is mostly setup, i haven't gotten anything juicy publishable yet, but the concept still keeps me up at night. zoinks…

[the-obnoxious-sibling]

I just wish your fic would be shuggy 6 chapters one but it’s like my wish. I kinda wait for reveal to read yours and that’s it xDDD IM THE WORST PERSON. IDC ABOUT THE OTHERS. I AM NOT INTERESTED.

jkldfsjjlks;; well, uh, wish granted, i guess? 😅

i am sincere in recommending ppl check out the exchange's fic/art collection, though! filter out ships and characters you’re not interested in, sure, i’m the same way. that said, there are things i wouldn’t have thought i’d like that i gave a shot because they were made for the exchange, and i am so glad i did! (half of the participating artists/writers are getting a new subscriber now that authors are revealed, ijs. so much talent and creativity on display.) there’s a lot of great stuff to be found in that collection!!

including…

several sanji & zeff fics! my personal favorite is this post-rescue fic where they are immediately ride or die without exchanging a word and then hang out with a very fun oc, but they’re all good imo

a sweet nami/vivi modern au where nami’s hurting and and finds it easier to talk to a ‘sorry, wrong number’ stranger than her rl friends. chatfic, about equal parts nami/vivi and nami & strawhats

sanuso soulmate mark au!!! y’all know i’m a sucker for that concept so of course i loved this, sanji excited to meet his fated love and usopp overthinking himself into an anxiety spiral

kuina gets resurrected fic (bias: written for me~) where everyone is confused and zoro is Having A Time. i love the tension.

some gorgeous art of a very fun devil fruit/worldbuilding concept (not saying more so i don’t spoil the twist!)