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Alright. Who hires these so called professional reviewers to always leave negative reviews on everything Sonic?
#sonic#sth#sonic the hedgehog#sonic prime#just came across a Sonic Prime review on my google home page#and it's a pretty negative review#saying only 'younger' and 'less discerning' fans could enjoy it but it has no appeal for 'actual' fans#excuse me but this sounds like an insult to the entire fanbase#and it says it's not a good video game adaptation.#i mean Whaaat?#it isn't supposed to be an adaptation. it's supposed to be it's own series#well whatever#they're doing the same thing they did to the movie and Frontiers (before the game was even released might i add)
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In-Depth Character Analysis On All The DR Characters Because What, Are You Gonna Try And Stop Me? Who Are You, My Mom? Yeah, I Didn't Think So- Part 1: Kiyotaka Ishimaru
Yes, I'm aware the title is ungodly long, it's called comedy. Behold, a series inspired by my overwhelming hubris! Despite my better judgement, I love this series and (almost) every single one of its characters, so I decided to do this little series of posts on the side, just cuz!
So part 1 of like, 88 I think?, going through the characters from THH, DR 0, SDR2, UDG, DR3, and DRV3 with as much objectivity as possible, analyzing their character using only canon material from the games/anime/novel/canon adaptation they're present in. So sit back and enjoy while I go feral! Or just scroll, if you aren't interested. Whatever works for you.
Part 1- Character Design
Kiyotaka Ishimaru is depicted as a very aggressive honors student, and is shown as such through his very expressive facial features and his choice of clothing. He has large eyebrows and big eyes, and is given a uniform meant to make him look more like a soldier, reflecting his rigid dedication to the rules and his ethics. This uniform also includes an armband meant to signify his authority within the class as Hall Monitor and as the unofficial class rep. His sprites are very animated, with big gestures using his arm(s) and his mouth often wide open, whether in a wide smile or while yelling. This makes him one of the more expressive characters in THH specifically, as most of those characters are pretty restrained on a day-to-day basis and only become more exaggerated when put under high levels of stress.
Something interesting about Taka is that his talent changes from the original Japanese to the English translation. His official talent is the SHSL Public Morals Committee Member, meaning his original talent was that of discipline and social order. This was translated to Ultimate Moral Compass in English, as most western schools don't have a Public Morals Committee. This change in translation unintentionally shifted the perception of his talent from discipline to morality. This change in distinction has had a bit of a negative impact on the Western perception of his character, as rather than appearing to impose order on the other students, it instead appears at the beginning as though we, the audience, are supposed to view him as a beacon of morality. We're not.
Part 2- Character Introduction
Taka is one of the first characters to actually speak to Makoto directly, berating him for being late on the first day of school, despite the fact that he and everyone else had experienced a strange warping of memory. He also goes on to interrupt your first conversation with Sayaka, stating that their time is being wasted by 'ridiculous back-and-forth'. Despite this, when it's his turn to introduce himself to Makoto, he goes off on a tangent about how cool Makoto's name is. He's described by Makoto as a 'flawless honors student' and is most publicly known for his work on his local Public Morals Committee. He believes in putting 'every ounce of effort' into living, and imposes this belief on those he interacts with, something Makoto finds irritating(This guy is... kind annoying.").
So in short, Taka's first impression on the player is that he's a mildly obsessive honors kid, and a bit of a hypocrite that isn't fully aware of his own presence or the effect it has on the rest of the cast. The game goes on to use this lack of social awareness as a source of comedy, as he takes Monokuma's initial greeting as Headmaster fully at face value. He struggles to grasp the concept of the killing game at first, opening the discussion upon Monokuma's departure from the welcome ceremony with dialogue that sounds like it was pulled from a customer feedback survey("So guys, how would you define what we just experienced?"). He's not a malicious or hateful figure; he wants to work with the class but isn't quite sure how to.
Part 3- Early-Game Events
The game spends the early-game establishing Taka's more negative traits. He's shown to be inobservant and wrapped up in his own ideals and need to command authority to even notice Kyoko is missing and, upon being informed of her disappearance, cares more about her punctuality than her safety. "Not only is she late, she didn't tell anyone she would be late! A most unbecoming personality trait..."
He's also established as hypocritical once again, and a bit egotistical, as he has trouble fathoming the others' lack of discoveries but overinflates the importance of his own.
He then goes on to agree to Celeste's suggested nighttime rule for all the boys in the class, without letting them speak for themselves. While ultimately, no one has a problem with the rule, this is the first real instance of him doing something that, on paper, is beneficial to the group, but without considering how the others actually feel about it.
Taka doesn't show up in-story again until the day of the motive, when he goes around to the entire class demanding that they will now all have breakfast together every morning after the morning announcement. Although this is a good idea, allowing for everyone to bond and creating a morning headcount, he makes this decision for the entirety of the group. Leon and Makoto both complain about this if you speak to Leon outside the cafeteria, but ultimately go along with it because they don't want Taka to continue bugging them about it. So we can see that his efforts are perceived negatively by his classmates and go unappreciated.
Already we've seen Taka act overbearing and commanding over and over, inadvertently separating himself from the majority of his peers. He's direct and to the point, forming the breakfast meetings expressly to 'become friends and build trust' with the rest of the class. So we can see in no uncertain terms that he wants to befriend his classmates, but that his lack of social skills leads him to fail at every turn. He doesn't ask the class to join him for breakfast, he tells them. The strategy he employs doesn't leave room for choice, and ends up building resentment from his classmates.
It's not until the first body is discovered and the rules of the class trial are revealed that reality fully seems to set in for Taka. He, along with everyone else, are given the rules of a game they don't really want to play- that should they fail in the trial, all of them will be killed. And it sends Taka to a breakthrough- that some regulations can be harmful to those they're imposed upon.
There's now a shift in his actions- he's still trying to push for the class to follow the rules he's set, yes, but there's a newfound urgency to them. When Byakuya disappears in chapter 2, his concern has shifted from punctuality to his classmate's safety. He's the one to lead the search for Byakuya when he doesn't answer. Despite all his harshness, we can see that his strictness now comes from a place of genuine concern for the people around him, a direct parallel to earlier in the game when Kyoko went missing- "I'd like to think so. But I'm worried something might have happened to him."
This growth of character, though not focused on, is undoubtedly present. The dedication he has to his discipline and his ego are still fully intact, but now that dedication has moved beyond just order. It's an act of protection, for him and everyone else. The invisible threat of death has become all too visible with Sayaka's absence from their last breakfast meeting. If he can keep track of everyone, then he'll know they're still alive. He can prevent another murder. It imposes upon him the responsibility of the leadership he craves.
Part 4- Relationship(s)
Unincluding if the player actively seeks him out through FTEs, Taka only ever develops a real relationship with one character of the other fourteen in-game, though he does have some important dynamics with others. We'll continue moving in chronological order.
4.1- Ishimondo (these bitches gay?)
Throughout the game, whenever Taka is saying or doing something stupid, Mondo is typically the one to call him out on it or shut him down. While this doesn't start to take real shape until chapter 2, it is visible here and there in the early game.
But their connection doesn't really start to take focus until chapter 2, as Taka's failings as leader and Mondo's constant correcting him puts them at odds. Mondo's attitude is the antithesis of Taka's, living a life of complete risk and impulsiveness, yet has a matching level of energy, and despite being more intimidating on a surface level, he's able to actually befriend characters like Chihiro, Hina, and Sakura, while Taka's left on the out. One of the best examples of this is found not in the game, but in the stageplay adaptation, where both characters attempt to help Chihiro feel better about her weakness in the daily life segment.
When Byakuya starts mocking Chihiro for her fear, Mondo threatens him, and insists that Chihiro's weakness doesn't matter because she's a woman. But when this makes her upset and Sakuraoi call him out on it, he offers to help Chihiro train as an apology, acknowledging that his behavior was irrational. But when Taka tries to give her advice by telling her not to be weak anymore and is told to be reasonable, he can only insist that Mondo's words don't matter anyway.
In the game itself, Taka's barely present for this exchange, as it chooses instead to focus on Chimondo's relationship. Regardless, the animosity between Mondo and Taka is still made very clear in-game.
Mondo and Taka are both demonstrating the desire to protect their classmates here, but in different ways. Taka is the more logical of the two, focusing on keeping track of resources and devising a system of check for everyone to keep watch over each other in the breakfast promise. Mondo, meanwhile, wants to push the importance of actually getting everyone the fuck out of there. While their endgoal is the same, they disagree on how to go about it, and both their stubbornness drives them to butt heads as time continues to pass, leading to the sauna scene.
After being slowly built up in the background, Ishimondo's mutual anger finally comes to a head, with both not understanding the position that the other is in. Taka still believes Mondo's value to be what he provides to society, and as a biker gang leader, that's not much to a man that lives by lawful discipline. Meanwhile, Mondo can only see Taka as an egomaniac with a stick up his ass and doesn't know the background to why(and neither does the player without actively seeking out his FTEs). They each follow a different code of ethics, and view themself as the protector of the class, leading them to see each other as rivals. Yet, despite that, both of them still share their core value of total dedication, and so when finding a way to prove themself the better man, they end up with an endurance competition. For Taka, this reflects his belief that men connect by baring their souls, and do so by baring their bodies(something only learned in-game by approaching him for FTEs).
(This also leads to the implication that, while Mondo insisted on entering the sauna with all his clothes on, at some point, he was, in fact, naked while with Taka that night.)
The information as to what happened in that sauna is intentionally left unanswered, remaining fully private between both men in-game. The only thing either of them will say is that a brotherhood was formed between them, and that who won their initial contest no longer matters. Finally, Taka has found someone. Someone he can confide in and lean on, someone who'll support him and that he can support in turn("And if you can't do it alone, just find someone to support you, and you can support them back! That's how you can overcome any storm!" -Taka ch 1).
And then Chihiro's case happens.
At first, when the motives are introduced, Taka is one of the few to vocally insist no murder will take place. He has newfound confidence in the willpower of his classmates, and puts faith into everyone else for the first and only time. Even when presented with his own unknown secret, he finds it ridiculous that anyone would kill over the embarrassing memories and secrets. It's here that we truly see the highest high of this character- when he comes up with the idea to share secrets. When he presents this idea, he moves forward as usual, preparing to be the first one to reveal their secret and take the pressure off. But when his classmates insist they can't (Toko & Celeste) he doesn't keep chugging along, and he doesn't completely shut down, either. He looks around at his classmates, and he asks Chihiro. He actually steps back and asks for someone else's opinion.
And when she isn't yet comfortable, he backs off. He respect her wishes, and he stands with the class, ready to help them face their secrets the following day. Finding a friend in Mondo has softened his rigid exterior a little bit, enough to actually consider the opinions of the others. He's gotten comfortable. All that comes crashing down with the discovery of Chihiro's body the next morning. After finally taking a step back and letting his classmates- his friends- make their own choices, it directly leads to the murder of one of them("Dammit! I'm sorry, Chihiro... It's all because I wasn't strong enough!").
Taka fully blames himself for allowing Chihiro to be murdered, and as the guilt of failure starts to set in on him, he looks to his ethics and order to solve it. Chihiro may be dead, but the murderer will be condemned through the class trial("Justice always prevails! Right, bro!?"). A solution, a path forward, still exists for him. He still has Mondo by his side, and he and the rest of the class can surely prevent this from happening again, right?
The trial only validates him at first, revealing the existence of a serial killer among the group, someone so clearly immoral for her killing obsession. But it's not her. Why isn't it her? "Could such a heinous villain really be innocent!?" But his confusion is quickly stamped out- of course, it's Byakuya, the guy that's been threatening everyone and refusing to cooperate, the guy that has no regard for the rest of their classmates. "He kept calling this a game, right? So he'd totally be willing to do whatever it takes to 'win'!" But no, wrong again- he didn't know that the murder was in the boys' locker room, and was taken aback by Chihiro being AMAB. It should be him, someone so clearly antagonistic, that's how it's supposed to go, right?? But no, it's wrong! Why? And, who could kill someone like Chihiro at their most vulnerable?
He's failed. Taka's failed in every way conceivable. Mondo, the first person he's ever truly felt connected to, a murderer? Chihiro's murderer? That can't be it. Even long after Mondo's stopped arguing, Taka continues to push back against Makoto and Kyoko's accusations. It's a coincidence, that's not actually proof, anything to get them to stop, to save his brother, to save himself from the reality he's about to have to face. When sent into the BTB, it's Taka we fight in his despair, not Mondo. Until the very end, Taka won't acknowledge it. He can't. He can't bring himself to vote his Mondo a murderer, a killer. How could the man who gave him the chance no one else would, ever be so cruel? "I- I refuse to believe it... There's no way... no way he would kill someone! Why!? Why why why why why!? WHYYY!? Why did you do it!?"
He learns the truth of Mondo's story alongside the rest of the class, unable to process it all. It makes no sense. They were friends who trusted each other, who helped each other. And what about the man's promise? Doesn't that count for anything!? This doesn't sound right. This isn't Mondo, not his Mondo, not the man from the sauna. How could he have been so wrong about him?! It just can't be, but it is; the truth is but a slap to the face.
He was wrong. He stood by Chihiro's killer and defended him. He let his brother become the monster he saw himself as. He didn't stop it when he could have. He was blinded by his own beliefs, and as he watches Mondo's death, his spirit dies with him, the game cutting out all music as Taka screams, filling a deafening silence. "As Taka's sad screams invaded our skulls, we were each forced to realize once again..."
4.2- Kiyondo Ishida
Taka enters chapter 3 as a hollowed out shell of himself. He's gone near comatose, staring at nothing and saying nothing. He won't eat, won't speak, won't sleep, and although there are a couple weak attempts to get him back in action from Hiro("It's times like this where the committee chairman needs to get things going with a BANG!"), he's mostly left to grieve by himself, as the rest of cast is more concerned with the expanded school than the bossy guy they didn't like that much.
Monokuma even goes out of his way to torture Taka, to punish him for his grief, lying about the existence of a time machine just to fuck with his head and give him false hope, sending him further into despair- "Hmm... You sound disappointed. But actually, I was lying about the whole thing anyway. There's no such thing as time machines!" He's forced to become Monokuma's most successful project from the class, completely and utterly destroyed.
When he learns of Alter Ego, something in his head clicks. He can still talk to Chihiro. He can repent. He can apologize directly to him. So, with Makoto's help, he's brought to the laptop. His guilt finishes totally consuming him as he asks: "Do you... hate Mondo? And since I couldn't stop him... do you hate me?" His own self-hatred stemming from his failure is projected onto Alter Ego in one last attempt to come to terms with what's happened. The response he receives, unfortunately, is the culmination of all the toxic and unhealthy ideas of manhood the other boys carried with them via an attempted simulation of Mondo.
"You're not letting yourself get crushed under the weight of that responsibility, are you!? A man's only worth as much as the load he can carry! You get it, right bro!? Hell, what am I saying? Of course ya do!"
"So you're just gonna stand there, huh? Just wait for things to get better? Just take your time and get all depressed... Take the time to indulge your regrets... You might even start walking again without realizing it. Sure, that kind of mediocre thing might work for some people."
This speech, while attempting to inspire Taka to keep living for Chihiro's and Mondo's sakes, encapsulates the desperate need to be perceived as strong and untouchable that Mondo himself carried, and that Chihiro admired so much. It sinks its way into Taka, convincing him that the way to respond to his guilt is simple- pretend it isn't there! Mondo has clearly returned to him, and he's never letting him go ever again. He fully deludes himself, and he's fused with this idealized version of his bro. He permanently ties himself to Mondo's memory, and goes from the SHSL Public Morals Committee Member to something else entirely- Kiyondo Ishida, the unholy mixture of both men.
This revelation also leads him to an obsession with Alter Ego, viewing it as the vessel in which his bro was returned to him. He views it as another chance to protect his bro from ever being hurt again, as some divine second-chance he's been granted. All desire to be around the rest of his class is gone, replaced with this obsession. He's put at odds with Hifumi, who's also connected with the AI, and separates himself from the group that much more. When Alter Ego disappears, he can't handle it. He panics. He won't let his bro die, not again. And so he dooms himself, refusing to let go of the shadows of the past enough to see his own death looming before him, and he's killed in the early hours of the morning, led by desperation to his demise. And even so, the class can only worry about the semantics of when he died, barely mourning him.
5- Isolation (What's the point of this guy, anyway?)
Rather than learning from the mistakes both Chihiro and Mondo made by subscribing to the societal expectations of what makes a man, Taka ends up doubling down, burning away the optimism and more reasonable logic Taka used to have. Taka's story is that of a doomed fate to become the symbol of manhood and its self-destructing nature, leeching off of his first and only friend's unhealthy behaviors and sending him spiraling. And it's allowed to happen because of his social isolation.
From the very beginning of the game, Taka is singled out as annoying to be around. He's put in a negative light and viewed as unpleasant to spend time with. Every attempt to befriend or connect with a classmate is written off as a nuisance, a hindrance. Taka doesn't know how to make friends. He doesn't know how to do anything besides follow the rules and regulations he's been taught. He sticks to his regimen, because it's comfortable, and doesn't understand why others can't conform in the way that he does. He's very thoroughly isolated mentally and emotionally from his classmates at every turn, to the point where even in the very first trial he's standing with no one but the dead by his side(as Sayaka and "Junko" were positioned on either side of his podium).
All this is done with the deliberate intention to showcase his solitude, and more importantly, the loneliness that comes from it. It's to the point that when he finally does make a friend, he thoroughly idealizes him in his subconscious, coming to view him as some perfect person who'd even support him. It's inherently contradictory from his established beliefs going into the game, that a delinquent could be kind, but he accepts it wholeheartedly. He gets to know Mondo on some deeper level while in that sauna, and it's enough to rapidly develop a massive codependency on him. So when Mondo self-destructs and dies, so too does Taka.
Taka's purpose as a character is to suffer. He wraps himself in his moral beliefs, remaining steadfast in what he views as right and wrong, making judgement calls he's 100% sure of, and when they're challenged/disproven, he's thrown wholly out of whack. He exists to serve a purpose- what would've happened if Makoto didn't accept the truth about Sayaka? What happens when you let your idealism blind you to the truth? What happens when you blind yourself to the reality of the people around you, of the darkness in the people you care about? You self-destruct. He's tossed aside, killed as an accessory to the plot of someone who does nothing but manipulate the truth. He dies, and that's just it. His story is cut short; he doesn't get to heal or grow or come to terms with the truth. Such is the fate of the failed.
6- Afterword
...I didn't even touch his FTEs for this. Holy shit.
I'm gonna be honest, as much as I love Taka, I never expected this post would become as long as it did, or that I'd uncover such a dark fucking reason for why he gets as totally fucked over as he does. Don't get me wrong, I still really wish he'd lived and gotten to grow after this, but maybe his death was more well-written than I used to think. Good god.
#danganronpa#danganronpa trigger happy havoc#trigger happy havoc#thh#dr thh#dr thh spoilers#danganronpa thh#kiyotaka ishimaru#ishimaru kiyotaka#danganronpa kiyotaka#character analysis#character study#analysis#fan theory#DR character analysis#chihiro fujisaki#mondo owada#ishimondo#alter ego
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Reading Wolverine comics after watching the movies has me absolutely falling in love with the "man or animal" motif that follows Logan literally everywhere.
// Marvel Comics Presents (1991): Issue #75
My favourite read so far is the short 4 issue series, Wolverine (1982), which the 2013 Wolverine movie is based on. Bascially it being about Logan trying not to lose Mariko to an arranged marriage and the cultural powers at play to which he isn't privy to. Furthermore, it absolutely dense with character-centered narrative with Logan's inner conflict surrounding the balancing act he must preform between embracing his animalistic side and his desire to be more than the killer he's always been, whilst he struggles with fitting into japanese society and the japanese underground. I could not reccomend it enough. Issue #3 is such a standout for me, all the excerpts provided are from it also.
One of the scenes i think highlight what im getting at with the motif is how Logan actively interprets an event that took place previously in the story. Earlier, he had fought Shingen (Mariko's father) to defend his own honor and for him to overrule Mariko's marriage so they may be together again, ultimately he not only loses but he humiliates and dishonors himself in the process. In this scene, he has a dream about the battle in a sequence that showcases what that humiliation actually meant for him in relation to his internal fight to let go of the animal he thinks himself of.
Despite how undisputable his physical strength is, the defeat he endures against Shingen crushes him and defines his motivations for the entire series. The words Mariko says in his dream, bascially defining him as a fraud and unworthy of her love, and the panel that follows this one saying he is also unworthy of life, is pretty indicative of his fear that his primal instincts- what he defines himself as -negates his noble aspirations to be a better man, overshadowing his morality.
It's also interestingly delved into with how his relationship with Mariko and his following romance with Yukio is contrasted in how they have an effect on Wolverine's internal conflict: Mariko's influence makes him want to strive for self-improvement, to appease her, while Yukio is able to accept who he is
Mariko's influence makes him want to strive for self-improvement, to appease her, while Yukio is able to accept who he is and his nature. The growth and control vs embracing your supposed truth serves as a new perspective to view Logan from. Basically, it's a reflection of how Logan himself is struggling to not only balance both aspects of himself, but also his struggle to accept them in the first place.
Going back to the films, I think they do a good job of adapting this method of symbolizing his self-reflection. For instance, in the origins movie, one of the conflicts I love from it is how this exact concept is adapted to Kayla and Victor. Kayla, being the stand-in for Mariko, motivates Logan to move past his animalistic side, literally telling him "you're not an animal, logan", whilst Victor is the force that wants him to ditch assimilation and embrace his mutations completely, though in this case it's much more violent and psychotic than Yukio's approach in the comic. The film version is a whole new exploration of his characterin its own right since it's more like these two opposing ideas are telling him what he should be, and the consequent struggle between what he should choose.
Though, and this is just my interpretation, what I appreciate most of this theme is that it managed to be so confusing for Logan that it circles back to being ironic. Because yes, he failed Mariko and he failed Yukio, he failed to assimilate to societal standards and he failed to be true to himself- whatever that really is -but I think one of his biggest failings is concluding for so long that he is an animal and therefore not a man, when in reality he has shown nothing but human desires, ambitions to change, to choose. He is an animal, it's just that that animal is a man.
#wolverine#james howlett#logan howlett#wolverine comics#x men#x men 2000#x men origins: wolverine#hugh jackman#deadpool and wolverine#deadpool#deadpool 3#ryan reynolds#marvel#marvel comics#character analysis#poolverine#deadclaws
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Chaos in Their Bones Ch. 5
Ongoing Series
Synopsis: All your life you’d listened to your friend, Usopp spin wild tales about pirates and adventure. Pirates weren’t a thing that came often to Syrup Village, but one straw hat pirate and his crew changed all that the day they arrived. Now, you aren’t so sure if your sleepy little village was always pirate-free or if no one had been paying attention.
Pairing: Roronoa Zoro x Reader
Genre: friends to lovers, frenemies to lovers, slow burn (I hope y’all like aching) eventual smut
Words: 15.7+
A/N: This chapter got waaaaaay ahead of me. It got longer and longer without me realizing it. So, I apologize for the length in advance and if this isn't any good. In the anime, Nami has some wild outfits and I wanted to sort of bring that to this adaptation a little. Nothing too crazy, but still Nami anime-esque. Also, don’t shoot me but I had a little creative liberty with something in here it’s not canon so yeaaaaaa…please just indulge me for the story lol. Also, this has another Zoro POV, and from here on out things will be very angsty, because I am the proclaimed mayor of Angstville, courtesy of @chans-room and it is my duty to bring a little to the next few chapters. As always, thank you, guys, for all the love and support. For always being so kind and loving it as much as you do. I hope you all continue to enjoy this story🖤 Much Love, Jenn
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Previous Next
“Hey Nami?”
You hoped the widespread dread you were beginning to feel wasn’t that apparent in your tone as you spoke. You did one last check in the mirror before turning to her reply of, “Hmmm?”
“Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but-“
“But?”
God, she looked amused.
“Is this supposed to be so…short?”
There was no denying Nami liked clothes. Gold. Berry. Okay, so Nami likes shiny things and things that could also buy her the shiny things. She also seemed to have a flair for fashion. Unfortunately, that fashion was intended to be worn on someone with a bit more confidence than you had. For once, you’d wished you’d paid attention to other things outside of just the components of what made up a plant.
“You don’t like what I picked.”
“It’s not that I don’t like it,” you stuttered out. “But this skirt is definitely…short.”
In one smooth move, Nami uncrossed her legs and got up from her seat. When she reached you, her hands grabbed your shoulders and gently turned you back to the mirror. Your reflections showed one woman questioning her whole existence because of a skirt with a corset style top, and one who looked confident in everything she did.
This time you were definitely not the latter.
“You look hot.”
“I look ridiculous and I’m afraid to bend over.”
Nami rolled her eyes so hard for a split second all that you saw was white. The hands that were on your shoulders now forcing you to turn from your reflected look of terror to her. Nami’s eyes shown bright with a determination to make you confident in walking out of her room and heading into the restaurant.
“Doc, do we need to do an affirmation together.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Then I need you to shake off whatever thoughts you’re having and realize that you are hot. Be confident in your own body.”
To send her words home, Nami clapped her hands against your shoulders and gave them one last shake before releasing you. You weren’t sure what to do or say after that so you just stood…staring back at her.
“Are you going to blink?”
“Sorry,” you hummed, shaking your head. “I was still trying to understand why you get a whole shirt and I get this.”
While her pink and tan outfit was tight and showed a good amount, her small eyelet cut out on her shirt barely showed, if any, cleavage. You felt like a bakery with the amount of buns you were selling.
There was that eye roll again.
“Oh my god,” she muttered under her breath. “You are impossible.”
Nami appeared to be tired of trying and turned on her heel to go over to a drawer. You weren’t sure what she was doing - or grabbing - but instead of watching her, you found your eyes drifting back to the mirror. You didn’t look bad just…different. You weren’t used to looking hot, as Nami put it but also so exposed. You reached over and grabbed your satchel and placed it over your shoulder, using it like a security blanket. All it did was make you feel more exposed than before, like a fraud wearing your face but dressed as someone more confident than you’d felt.
The sound of a drawer shutting hard brought you out of your thoughts and back into the present. It didn’t keep your hands from wringing the strap on your satchel.
Fuck it
“Hey, Nami do you think-“
“Zoro is going to like it? Yeah. I think he won’t be able to keep his eyes off you.”
You felt like the air had been stripped from your lungs. Your eyes no doubt were large and showing your surprise as you struggled to make words formulate on your tongue.
“Okay, that wasn’t what I was going to ask.”
“It wasn’t?” She teased.
“You know damn well I was going to ask something else.”
Why does she look so smug?
No. You were not frowning.
“Okay, then tell me: what were you going to ask?”
“I suddenly can no longer recall.”
Nami’s smile was joined seconds later with laughter that followed behind you as you tried to make your escape. The sound of very happy feet following closely behind at your heels. You were tempted to look back just to see if she was skipping, but her next teasing words sent you up the stairs two at a time.
“Sure you don’t.”
“You can’t prove it,” you shot back just as you cleared the stairs.
The sun was a welcome warmth on your skin after days of being covered in the mist of the fog. The sounds of happy banter between Usopp and Luffy sent you walking towards the main belly of the ship. You could see Usopp dressed in a pirate hat, a leather jacket sans the shirt, and matching pants. A pair of circle sunglasses adorned his face and you had to admit he looked pretty cool. Luffy just made you want to reach over and gently pinch his cheeks.
How is anyone supposed to take him seriously…
He was wearing overalls, for Christ sakes. Luffy looked absolutely adorable.
At the sound of your approach the guys turned towards you and the reaction you received made you want to throttle Nami. Luffy’s smile faltered ever slightly and Usopp wouldn’t even look you in the eye.
“Hey Doc, you look-ugh different.”
“Gee, thanks Usopp,” you grumbled.
“Are you guys done playing dress up so we can get a drink?”
Of course he was more interested in a drink than food. Of course, Zoro sounded like his usual grumpy self, as well. The problem? He didn’t look like his usual grumpy self.
While Zoro had been wearing t-shirts and jeans - things that looked comfy and regular the past few days - it was replaced with something dangerous. The hue of his kimono style shirt was a blue so deep it could’ve come from the ocean itself.
The most dangerous part about the shirt wasn’t just that it left a devilish window of skin on his chest available to torment your eyes. It was that same v-shaped window indicated the indent of a sculpted chest and collarbones, but the fabric at his arms hugged the muscles tight. The same strong arms you’d watch do repeated reps with weights and push-ups. Muscles that moved with ease under the skin as he skillfully practiced with his swords.
The dangerous part, after all of this, was that it mimicked a gi. The fabric folded over each other telling you that it would only take a slight tug from your hand to release the tucked material from his pants, from the safety of his sashed belt to leave his chest exposed to your hands and-
God, focus on something else.
But you couldn’t focus on anything else. How could you with the way he was looking at you?
Zoro’s eyes scanned over your body and every inch his gaze lingered caused your skin to flush. You fought the urge to fidget with the strap of your satchel but couldn’t stop your teeth from pulling in your bottom lip. Zoro’s eyes caught the movement and honed in on it. Your breath hitched in your throat and you could’ve sworn Zoro noticed that too.
You were supposed to dislike him. He was an asshole. A drunk. A pain in the ass with a smart mouth. God, it didn’t stop you from wanting him so bad your body ached. From the way he was watching you, you could’ve sworn maybe it felt the same for him. It was a nice thought until he opened his mouth.
“You’re going to wear that?”
And just like that, whatever witchcraft was in the air to make you think of doing anything other than annoying the shit out of him was gone.
“I think she looks good.”
Nami came to stand beside you and tore Zoro’s eyes from you to her.
“Yeah she does,” Usopp agreed from behind you, “but Naan would have a fit if she saw you dressed like this.”
A groan exhaled from your lips as you turned and started for the ramp. No, you were not stomping your feet. You just needed to get off this damn boat and away from all the idiot men aboard.
“Good thing Naan isn’t here, then,” you huffed.
You could practically feel Usopp shrug his shoulders, his hands up in question as he yelled after you, “I was just being honest. Naan would tell her it wasn’t practical.”
You weren’t sure who he said the last part too and you didn’t care. You were already stepping over the side of the Merry and heading towards the ramp when you felt a presence behind you. You expected it to be Nami and what you got was the shock of seeing Moss colored hair and the glint of three gold earrings.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m walking. What does it look like?”
But why must you do it next to me?
The question hung on the back of your tongue. You weren’t brave enough to ask it, because you could already hear the question of, “Why?”. Why did it matter if Zoro chose to walk beside, in front, or behind you? It shouldn’t matter what he chose to do, but it did matter because the way he looked at you just now was forever burned into your frontal lobe.
“Just this once you couldn’t just leave the swords on the ship?”
“Wherever I go the Wado Ichimonji goes.”
Of course it does
You expected him to do his usual of falling back to stand with Luffy. It’s what he usually did. Today was apparently shaping up to be an unusual one. Not only did he not stop walking with you, he continued to follow close behind you as you entered into the Baratie. His presence was hard to miss since when you stopped inside the foray of the restaurant Zoro was mere inches from your back.
“Must you stand so damn close to me?”
Each word was uttered through clenched teeth. You didn’t want to turn around and look at him. You didn’t need eyes in the back of your head to know if you did you would come fast first to the exposed skin of his chest.
“Why’d you bring your satchel in here? Are you worried someone is going to stub their toe?”
“Can you for two seconds-“
The words had come out as a growl. Your skin bristled with a heated irritation to rip into him, and tell him that he was being his infamous asshole self. Cool points went to you for not completely falling apart when you caught sight of him.
Zoro was too damn close looking how he looked with his chest exposed like that. His hands in their rightful place of one in his pocket and the other resting casually on his sword. The darkness of his eyes appeared so endless you were certain the moon could call them home. Maybe she already had and that’s why they sparked to life every time he looked at you.
Just like now.
One minute, Zoro’s face held its usual emotionless stare and the next you watched as his eyes lit up like fireworks in the night sky; celebrating an event you once again missed. A soft tug on the corner of his lip lifted just enough you could’ve called it a smirk.
When did he start looking at you like this?
That wasn’t even the biggest question. The biggest question was, when did you start to fall for it?
You felt your tongue involuntarily flick out to wet your suddenly dry lips, and to your horror Zoro’s eyes lazily watched the movement. He didn’t even try to hide it.
Oh god, you should’ve stayed on the boat.
You watched Nami come through the double doors entrance and the way her face lit up as her eyes roamed between the both of you instantly sent your eyes rolling. You were never going to hear the end of this. You let out a deep breath, your eyes scanning one last time in his direction, before you walked over to join Nami.
The Baratie was a thing of beauty. You’d never seen a building like it. While the outside was made of boards of broken down ships in the style of an actual fish, red siding and white ashwood for those fishy lips, the inside was a well thought out piece of beauty. The foray split open to a staircase of cherry wood that led down to a tiled floor of checkered black and white. It should’ve looked ridiculous, but only the center was made with these tiles. The rest was made with the continued us of the cherry wood that led up to an intricate painting on the ceiling. Sections of the fish's belly were carved out into long booths that looked like they could comfortably seat a party of eight.
Also, the smell of the food was making you almost willing to grovel to get a plate because there was no way-
“Welcome to Baratie. How may I help you?”
The fishman was polite enough with his semi-warm smile. It was the smile of a man forced to be approachable and nice all day, and not one that he meant.
“Hi. Where do we eat?”
Luffy’s smile on the other hand could make a rainbow weep.
“Do you have a reservation, sir?”
Yup. There was no way you guys could afford a place like this or apparently even have the chance to get in. You could feel your shoulders deflate as you walked over to the railing and leaned your arms against it. All the people dining - all the pirates - didn’t appear the least bit phased at your staring. Luffy pressed himself shoulder-to-shoulder with you with the two of you taking in the fancy scene before you.
To be fair, with food like what they were being served you wouldn’t care who watched you stuff your face either.
“Do we need one?”
Your forehead had already relocated itself to the cool wood of the rail. Your knees meeting the metal as you tried not to laugh at how cluelessly innocent Luffy was.
“We are very full today. I could put you on the waiting list. It’s three weeks out.”
“Maybe you want to check your book again.” Usopp walked forward, as confident as ever, and leaned himself against the hostess podium. You were expecting one of his smooth stories and instead wanted to throw yourself over the side of the railing as he finished. “You wouldn’t want to turn away the future King of the Pirates, would you?”
“And who is that supposed to be, sir?”
“Monkey D. Luffy. Perhaps you’ve heard of him?”
Based on the heavy sigh that came from the hostess you could tell his patience was wearing thin. So was his pleasantness.
“Well, in that case, I suppose we could find you a table. In three weeks.”
Usopp came to stand beside you with a smile as big as the ocean blue on his face. He was so proud, like he’d accomplished something major. Usopp had both the ability to create bullshit from thin air, and the ability to believe others would believe what he said without question. That’s why he was giving you the finger gun of celebration without noticing the look on the hostess face - or the mumbled words.
“Even out here, Doc I still got it.”
“Yeah, I can see that.”
You noticed Nami move forward as Luffy conjoined himself to your other available side. You were now perfectly sandwiched between your Captain and your best friend. Both of them jumping in giddy excitement at the idea of sitting down at any minute and eating.
“What are you going to eat, Doc?”
“I hadn’t thought about it, yet. I didn’t think we’d get past the front door.”
“Why is that?”
“She’s always been a little cynical ever since we were kids.”
You balked at Usopp’s admission and if you could’ve scoffed any louder it would’ve turned into a cough.
“I am not cynical!”
“You are literally one of the most cynical people I’ve ever met.”
“That’s because I’m one of the few people you’ve ever met who still talks to you,” you grumbled.
“See? That cynicism is turning its ugly little head right now. It’s okay, Doc. I forgive you.”
Your mouth was open, a reply stationed on your tongue, when you heard something shocking behind you. The hostess was advising Nami to follow after him and when you glanced at her as she smiled at Zoro, you wondered what had been said. All it took was for Usopp to see him beckoning for them to follow for his ego to be boosted. His hands clapping happily against yours and Luffy’s shoulders as he giggled out, “See, I told you it would work.”
You peeled yourself from the railing and headed to follow the rest of the crew when, once again, you realized Zoro was waiting at the stairs edge. He wasn’t looking at you while he waited, however, for his eyes were glued to the many possibilities of would be threats in the room.
As soon as your feet touched down on the burgundy runner that ran the length of the stairs Zoro followed after. It wasn’t like the last time when you could feel him practically right on your heels. A switch had turned on in his head and Zoro was on high alert.
Luffy took the last step in a loud double-footed jump that finally brought the attention of most of the tables to your descent. While up top, looking down from the foray, the space in the booth’s had looked massive. It still was, but a startling realization that you could end up next to Zoro left you scrambling for some space.
“I have to pee.”
You’d just gotten to the tables edge and it felt like the only thing to say to save yourself. Everyone froze for all of a few seconds before they continued scooting into the booth.
“Okay, Doc. Go to the bathroom,” Nami stated.
She looked so relaxed that you felt incredibly jealous. You wish you could be that cool, calm, and collected all the time. Except, obviously, when Luffy was testing her patience.
You turned to ask the host where it could be located when the sound of Zoro’s swords thrashing around turned your head in his direction. For a split second, he looked a little flushed. His eyes scanning the room to see if anyone had watched him try and fail, very badly, at getting his swords to go inside the booth.
“Just take them off,” you huffed at him in passing.
“I’ve got this.”
Zoro’s eyes were still trained on the room, on every pair of eyes that dared to stare back, as he moved to the other side with Nami. Even then you watched him struggle to move his swords into the alcove between the pillar and the seat.
“If you still need to use the facilities Miss, they will be right this way.”
You gave the table with Luffy and your crew mates one last look before you followed the host closely to the safety behind a locked door.
Did locking the door seem a bit much when there were four available stalls inside? Yes. When you say you needed to hear that click to signify that you were completely alone to ease some of the growing tension in your shoulders, you meant it.
You rushed over to the sink and found your hands grabbing at the porcelain to help center yourself. Your head was dizzy from the mental whiplash that seemed to be your relationship with Zoro. One minute, you couldn’t stand him and he seemed equally annoyed with your very existence. The next, he was helping you with your sea sickness or inadvertently doing things around the ship to make your life a little easier. Now, he was looking at you differently. Zoro was acting strange, but honestly, when wasn’t he?
You glanced up at your reflection in the mirror. The words falling automatically from your lips.
“So are you.”
It wasn’t all him. It never was. Cause and effect. One couldn’t exist without the other, and maybe that was why you felt the way you did gazing at your reflection. You’d been trying to deny the gravitational pull that you were hopelessly fighting against ever since you met him. Before you’d ever seen his face your soul seemed to say, “Oh, there you are.”
It wasn’t possible. It wasn’t scientific and yet here you were locked inside of a bathroom all because the thought of sitting next to him made your heart feel like it would try and flee your chest.
You allowed yourself a couple more minutes to boost yourself back up. You could do this. It was just a guy. A guy who’d tucked a flower behind your ear and looked at you like you’d both strung up the stars and drank the last bottle of his rum.
A knock on the bathroom door brought you crashing back to reality. You quickly moved over to the door to release the latch. You’d barely had any time to move back before a woman came barreling through looking not too pleased with you locking the door. You mouthed a, “sorry,” in a way of apology before you made yourself scarce and walked back out to the table.
The minute you stepped back into the main dining room you got the sense you’d missed something. Your eyes searched over the tables. You found a pair of shoes that belonged to a pair of legs that was attached to a man lying lifelessly still on the floor.
Yup. You’d most definitely missed something.
The doctor in you immediately wanted to go to the man and make sure he wasn’t dead. You could practically feel your toes point in the direction for the rest of your body to follow. You just weren’t sure if it was something you should do in a room full of pirates. Plus, no one else seemed particularly worried that he wasn’t breathing so that should be good enough for you.
You were bouncing on your feet. You wanted to go check so badly. It almost happened to where you were going to say fuck it and just go check when you noticed your waiter at your table. He was tall, strong build set inside a stylish suit with stark white hair that appeared to reach his cheeks. He didn’t look happy to be there until his eyes spotted Nami and a smile as smooth as sin slid across his face.
He is handsome.
Nami looked unimpressed and a part of you was dying to know what the hell was happening. Luckily for you, you were about to find out.
As you approached the table Zoro’s eyes that had narrowed in on their waiter flicked to your oncoming approach and…did he look worried? The annoyance that had hardened his eyes noticeably softened, his back sitting up straighter in his seat while he continued to watch you come to the table. He had his arms crossed over his chest and you wanted to scream. Everything was flexing at you and it just felt like the universe was incredibly unfair.
“Sorry guys. Uhm have you guys noticed the ugh guy just laying there on the floor” you stated.
You were looking. Again.
You were standing next to the waiter who turned to greet you, his hands tucked in his pockets - fuckin great another one. The smile had wilted at the edges until his eyes fell on you and instantly he flashed a set of pretty teeth.
“They’re alright, madam. Just a couple of men who needed to be reminded of the rules of the house. My name is Sanji and I’ll be your waiter for this evening. Is there anything that I can get you to start? Appetizers? A drink, perhaps?”
Sanji was incredibly polite and his accent was as smooth as the rest of him. His eyes were impossibly blue. While Nami’s appeared almost gray at times, especially when she became upset and the color darkened like storm clouds, Sanji’s reminded you of azure aster’s in the spring.
“What is the strongest thing you have?”
You really could use that drink. You were in the middle of taking your satchel from across your body, eyes scoping to see where you would sit, when Sanji’s reply stopped you died in your tracks.
“That would be me, sweetheart.”
Did he just wink at you?
“What’s wrong with your face?”
“I think he just does that.” Nami cut in sending your eyes to travel to where she sat inside the booth. “It’s like an involuntary tick or something.”
“Oh. Explains a lot.”
You knew Sanji could tell you were both taking the piss out of him, but there was no denying he was a good sport about it.
“Not a tick. Just a show of appreciation for two lovely ladies, such as yourselves.”
“Okay. I’ve heard enough.”
A soft yelp of surprise came from you as you felt a soft, yet calloused hand grab at your wrist and, not so gently, pull you to their side. Zoro’s side. He had just magically removed himself from the booth and was pulling you to the now open section. The section that would put you next to Nami, but also him.
“Oy, women don’t like to be manhandled like that,” Sanji interjected.
“This one likes to be manhandled quite often. We don’t need your concern.”
Usopp’s water sprayed across the table and you were willing to bet that would’ve been your very own reaction if you didn’t have a mouthful of words.
“What the hell are you talking about?” You blanched back at him.
Zoro’s attention wasn’t directed at you. He and the waiter seemed to be in a battle of…something. Even as he sat back down, his legs spread broad and arms crossed back over his chest, Zoro oozed two simple words: “Try me.”
“See, that’s your problem right there. Women don’t like to be manhandled-“
“Sometimes we do,” Nami mumbled and you had to hide your smirk with your hand.
“They like to be treated like queen’s and with respect.”
“I thought a waiter’s job was to bring food to the table. I don’t see any food.”
The tension that rose around you was palpable. The two of them acted like they were caught in a verbal pissing match. Nervously, you glanced around the table to find Usopp playing with his napkin while peeking out to look at both the men. Luffy just looked genuinely lost.
Same.
You imagined there was a chance you would never get that drink, or any food, with how this evening was turning out. Finally, with an irritated roll of his tongue along his jaw Sanji turned to the rest of the table and tried to apply that same easy going smile as before.
“I’ll be right back with your order. Please let me know if there is anything else I can get you ladies.”
“They’re fine.”
With one last glance in Zoro’s direction Sanji left and headed back into what you assumed must be the kitchen. When you were sure he was gone you turned and smacked Zoro in his arm. He didn’t even look phased.
“What?”
“‘What?’” You mimicked back at him. That earned you a stare. “What in the hell was that?”
“Seems to me like somebody was jealous.”
Usopp teased and for once when Zoro’s eyes narrowed in on him, Usopp didn’t even flinch.
“I’m not jealous of a waiter.”
“Your actions say otherwise,” Nami reminded him.
In usual Zoro fashion he didn’t respond right away. His arms tightened a little more on his chest as he situated his back higher against the back of the booth. His jaw ticking like a time bomb refusing to respond to any of your prodding.
You wanted answers. You wanted him to explain what the hell that was all about, because your skin was still burning where his hand had latched on to you. It felt possessive; a man reaching out to claim something that was his.
The world around you might as well have gone by in a blur. You knew at some point the drinks and food had been deposited on the table. You could smell the delicious food sitting in front of you; the appetizers everyone was sharing around the table. The only thing you were able to focus on was tracing the place of where his fingers had wrapped around your wrist. Your mind felt like it was held prisoner, unable to let go and it wasn’t until you felt someone’s presence leaning closer to you in the booth that you finally broke free.
“Are you not going to eat?”
Nami’s question whispered against your neck and you had to fight to suppress the shiver that threatened to move down your spine. When had she gotten so close? Nami was looking at you like you’d given her reason to worry.
How long had you been sitting there staring off into space? Your eyes drifted to glance around the table - Luffy noticeably with his mouth full - and the drink sitting in front of you.
“Oh, thank god. Booze,” you mumbled, as you reached out to take the glass.
It took you less than a minute to bring the rim to your lips and down it in two very audible gulps. You tried not to make a face as the liquor hit the back of your throat. When you’d told Sanji you wanted something strong, he’d delivered.
“Well, at least you did something other than stare off into space.”
“You know, it might not be any of my business-“
“I don’t think a sentence started that way leads to anything good.”
Usopp didn’t seem the least bit deterred by Zoro’s words. He continued to trim a piece of the meat off his steak while he glanced around the table. While you didn’t know what it was Usopp was about to say or ask, you knew one thing was for sure. You needed more-
“Beer! Yes!”
God, help you, but you were giggling from excitement of finding more alcohol. Just as you reached out to grab it, Zoro’s voice came bombarding through your good time.
“That’s mine.”
You were sure Zoro was expecting you to set the bottle back down. To not uncap the top and stare him down as you bring the bottle up to your lips and take a long, slow pull. When you finished you set your now claimed beer down in front of you.
“It was yours.”
“I was wondering, Zoro, how you got that bruise on your face?”
Usopp motioned to the exact spot where the bruise in question used to be with the hand that held his steak knife. You cringed at the idea of him hurting himself, and could feel the words of caution bubbling up on your tongue.
“I don’t have a bruise.”
“You did, though,” Luffy offered up in between his next bit. “It was on your left cheek.”
“That was me.”
Why were you raising your hand? Quickly, you set it back down in your lap. The smile that spread across your lips, however, stayed.
“Doc, let’s not go around telling tall-tales, okay,” Usopp chuckled.
“Usopp, you are the king of tall-tales. Mine is very much real,” you beamed.
Nami looked between the two of you. Her eyes got brighter with each passing second as she realized you weren’t lying.
“Oh my god,” she chuckled. “It is true, isn’t it.”
“Yup.”
You popped the p at the end for dramatic effect. Your hand grabbing a hold of your new bottle of beer that you quickly took a sip of.
“You seem way too happy about this,” Zoro grumbled, his food now forgotten.
You couldn’t deny you were enjoying retelling this moment. The way everyone else acted, it’s as if you’d taken on a giant and everyone was surprised you’d survived. If that was the case, you would have to take a page out of Usopp’s book and embellish the story just a little.
“So, there I was racing back to get to Kaya’s to save you guys, when I heard a lot of strange grunting coming from the well.”
“The one you hate?”
“Yes, Usopp, that exact one. I was going to pass by when the sounds got even worse - someone was indeed stuck inside the well. When I went over to peer across the ledge a wild Moss-haired idiot appeared from the side.”
“I’m going to have to object to this retelling.”
You waved Zoro’s words off and fought the urge to shush him.
“No interruptions, please. Now, where was I? Oh, yeah the Moss-haired idiot who came over the side-“
“And instead of helping me this psycho decided to punch me and almost send me back down the well.”
“Psycho?” You balked.
“Yeah, a psycho. What kind of person sees someone struggling to get out of a well and, instead of helping them, tries to send them back down?”
“Why are you guys always like this,” Nami cut in.
“Like what?”
“You guys act like you can’t say one nice thing to each other or it’s going to be the end of the world.”
“I can too say something nice.”
You were not going to pout. Nami’s brows raised upwards like you’d told her there was no such thing as the West Blue and that fish could fly. You crossed your arms to try and ward her off, but there was no getting away from it.
“Can I just say, this food is so good? I don’t know if I can take another bite - but I’m gonna.”
You allowed them to comment about the food. The food you still hadn’t tried. While you’d sat in silence, stewing over thoughts filled with questions and not enough answers everyone had eaten.
“Oh, man you said it.”
“I’m not going to be able to eat for a week,” Nami agreed.
“Should we get dessert?”
“I have all I need right here,” Zoro stated, his thumb flicking the top off his beer before he took a drink.
You could feel a smart ass remark sitting in the back of your throat. You wanted to say it - to see that flash of irritation darken his eyes. You liked the idea of getting under his skin, because whether you wanted to admit it or not, Zoro was definitely under yours. Maybe it would’ve been simpler if you’d stayed at Syrup Village.
“Mmm! That reminds me. We should make a toast! Everyone grab your glasses. To the best crew sailing on the sea and to our victory. Yeah!”
Luffy grabbed his glass of milk and held it up. His happiness is enough to get most of you to join him in raising a glass. Hell, it was enough to get Usopp to clink his beer against Luffy’s milk.
Beside you, Zoro smiled and took a drink from his bottle and you never wanted to be an alcoholic beverage more in your life. You needed to get out of this booth. You seriously needed to go back to the ship and think about your life choices.
“No, I’m sorry. What victory exactly?”
Nami didn’t try to make her tone flat or hide the question off her face. She was genuinely perplexed, while the rest of you were eager for any reason just to drink.
“Our victory against the marines. It was our very first battle and we crushed them.”
“I don’t know how many naval battles you guys have been a part of-“
“Two dozen, at least.”
Why did Usopp’s response not surprise you in the slightest.
“But that was a disaster,” Nami continued without missing a beat. “We were unprepared, uncoordinated. By all rights, we should be at the bottom of the sea.”
“We’re not though. Luffy saved us.”
For a split second, this Nami you were seeing was different from the one you’d spent the last few days aboard the Merry. Sure, at times she could have a prickly exterior, but never like this. Usopp defending Luffy triggered something inside her - something rage-filled and dangerous. Something born from desperation.
“Are we really going to ignore the elephant in the room right now?”
Luffy was smiling like he usually did. Unable to follow wherever Nami was leading you all, but you could sense it. You weren’t sure what drove you to try and play peacekeeper. Why you spoke her name softly between you and tried to reach out to her, only for her to pull away like you’d stung her.
“You failed to mention that your grandfather was a marine. And not just any marine, but a Vice-Admiral, at that! I don’t know about you three, but I didn’t sign up for that.”
Zoro had been listening to her through closed eyes. You weren’t sure if he was truly trying to listen or dismiss what she had to say, but it surprised you when he stepped in. His first instinct was to stick up for Luffy, something you hadn’t been expecting.
“You raided a marine base. Of course that’ll make you a target.”
“I’m sorry what?”
If you had been drinking or eating, you would’ve choked. Neither of them seemed to pay you any mind.
“If I stole the map, no one would’ve known I was there, as opposed to wrecking a base commander’s office.”
Yes, you could vaguely recall Luffy’s speech to Kaya about all the marvelous things they’d done in the few days they’d known each other. Did you necessarily believe him at the time? Not really. But now…
Before a fresh wave of thoughts could wash up in your brain, Sanji magically appeared placing the bill on the table.
“Your bill, sir.”
Luffy looked around at all of you, a soft smile playing at his lips, as he held up his finger for all of you to wait. He quickly signed the receipt and handed it back.
“Thank you, my good man.”
Sanji took the bill back, his eyebrow quirked up as he read whatever Luffy had signed at the bottom. Whatever it was sent a grin wider than the East Blue to brighten up his face.
“No, sir. Thank you.”
Luffy waited for Sanji to leave the table before he looked back at you all. For once, he wasn’t all smiles. All that care-free energy was contained and replaced with a seriousness you weren’t sure you liked.
“Look, I’m not saying it’s good that the Marines are on our tail, but we showed them that they can’t just roll over us. This crew, our crew, can handle anything.”
It would’ve been a riveting Captain's speech if it wasn’t interrupted the second he finished speaking.
“Who the hell is Monkey D. Luffy?”
The voice that rang across the Baratie was thick with age. You didn’t have to look far to know it belonged to the older gentleman who stood at the entrance to what you could only assume was the kitchen. His peg leg made clunking noises off the tile as he made his way towards the table.
How did he know where to go? Luffy was just leaning out the side of the booth waving ever so-slightly with his smile back on his face. “Here.”
“You seem to be confused about the rules of the house, but Baratie doesn’t offer credit. You eat, you pay.”
How much is the food?
You only had thirty-three Berry to your name. You started to reach inside your bag when Luffy waved you to stop. The older Chef looked from you and back to Luffy who placed his hands together like he was about to pray.
“I think you’re confused. The meal has already been paid for. I just haven’t given you the money yet.”
“Yeah, and how’s that?”
“You can add it to my treasure tab.”
Your forehead hit the edge of the table so fast you weren’t even sure it actually hurt.
“And what, pray tell, is that?”
“I may not look like a big deal yet, but you’re talking to the future King of the Pirates. And as soon as I find the One Piece, I’m going to come back, pay this bill in full, and with interest.”
At least the Chef had the decency to chuckle before he lurched down and grabbed Luffy by the front of his overalls.
“I got a better idea.”
You watched as he placed Luffy in front of him with a controlling hand held on to his shoulder. A way to keep him from running, if he tried, but you knew Luffy would go without a fight. You glanced around the table to find no one making a move to follow.
“You guys are seriously just going to sit here,” you huffed.
Nami leaned her head back against the booth. Her eyes looking up at the ceiling and refusing to look anywhere else.
“I need a drink.”
“Yeah,” Zoro chuckled as he grabbed a hold of what was left of his beer. “Now you’re talking.”
You’d waited until they all removed themselves from the booth before you slipped away. You were sure the three of them wouldn’t miss your presence as you made your way towards the kitchen. It wasn’t until you’d passed the last pillar before the kitchen that you felt the familiar touch of calloused fingers wrap themselves lazily around your wrist.
The tug you felt this time was softer - a plea for your attention instead of forcing it. You weren’t sure what you expected when you turned around. If Zoro would be his usual unreadable smoothness like stone or if the corner of his eyes would be tinged with annoyance. There were only a few possibilities that you’d grown accustomed to and all of them were nothing of what you got.
When you turned to meet him, Zoro didn’t look like he usually did. The hardness that kept him unreadable was replaced with something softer. His lips parted as he searched your face with your wrist still held loosely in his hand.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to help, Luffy.”
“Luffy, can handle himself.”
“Zoro-“
You weren’t sure why your tone had come off saying his name as breathy as it did. As if you were both tucked inside the alcove of a church hiding to keep from being caught doing something forbidden. You also couldn’t explain why when he dropped your wrist from his hand you’d chosen to place it on his chest. It wasn’t until you’d done that you realized just how close you both were.
“I’m not going to leave him to do dishes by himself until he tells me too.”
“How do you know he’s doing dishes?”
“Why the hell else would he take him into the kitchen?”
“Good point.”
You removed your hand from his chest and, for a split second, you thought you saw a glint of loss.
“You guys head to the bar and I’ll meet you there shortly.”
Zoro made no move to leave. He stood there looking every bit as intimidating as a man with three swords could be, while also looking seemingly lost. He appeared to be thinking something over - a debate in his mind about whether or not he should even say whatever was weighing heavily there.
You almost told him to just spit it out, but he looked like he would rather chew on razor blades than say whatever it was. When Zoro finally got it off his chest it sounded like he’d choked.
“What about the waiter?”
Confusion clouded your features as you replied, “What about him? Do you need me to find him for you or-“
Zoro waved you off. He looked more awkward now than you’d ever seen him. All the cool confidence that he’d oozed seemingly gone in the blink of an eye, and replaced with a hand behind his neck and eyes that refused to meet yours.
“No. I mean be careful of the waiter?”
“I’m confused.” That was an understatement. “Is there something I’m missing about this waiter?”
“No - it's - never mind. I’ll just see you when you finish doing whatever it is you plan to do.”
“Okay.”
“What are you planning to do?”
Your head was metaphorically and literally spinning from the conversation. One second, Zoro looked ready to follow after Usopp and Nami who were no doubt already at a table with drink in hand. The next, he seemed uncharacteristically bashful.
You didn’t want to smile. What if it ruined the moment?
“I plan on helping Luffy by helping the Chef.”
“I’m going to pretend that makes sense.”
When you gave him a thumbs up in response you wished lightning would’ve come down and burnt you to a crisp. What made it worse? From the smile that was beginning to work its way at the corners of Zoro’s lips, you could practically hear what he was going to say.
“You really are masterful with replies.”
“Okay, well, I’m gonna go in there now,” you stated. Your body slowly backed away from him and the heart stopping smile that was only growing wider.
When did he start smiling at you like that?
You were almost to the swinging double doors when someone came rushing through and collided immediately with your back. The sound of dishes crashing sent your eyes wide and finally tore you away from the swordsman in front of you.
“Fuck.”
“Oi, what’s going on out here?”
Double fuck.
You stooped down to help the waiter pick up the pieces of plates that had shattered on the ground and the food right along with it.
“What the bloody hell is going on ‘ere?”
Looking up from your crouched position on the floor, you were greeted by the same Chef who had pulled Luffy into the back. Without thinking you jolted to stand upright to face him with your hands struggling to keep the pieces of broken plate from dropping.
“I came to help my Captain in your kitchen.”
As the words left your mouth, so too did a couple pieces of a plate.
“No.”
It was abrupt. It was harsh and it was final. He didn’t even give you a chance to try and change his mind. The hard sound of his peg leg turning back into the kitchen cutting off whatever your next sentence might have been.
“Hey! I can help!”
You pushed through the double doors and narrowly missed a cook passing by with a flaming piece of meat sautéing in the pan. You pulled a face and quickly moved away. This time you were watching closely where you were going and playing extra close attention to the fast pace movements happening around you.
For someone so large, the Chef made his way with ease around the kitchen. You weren’t sure if he was just light on his feet or if everyone in the kitchen just learned to work around him.
“No.” He sounded like he’d smoked two packs of smokes a day and finished it off by gargling with a cigar. “What you can do is get out of my kitchen before you make more of a mess.”
“Hey Doc!” Luffy waved from his place in the corner. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to help you.”
And to show how helpful you were, you placed the broken pieces of plate down on the table. The old man regarded him momentarily before looking back at you.
“You’re with him?”
“Yeah I am.”
The old man turned back to Luffy, a large thumb pointed back to you as he spoke, “She broke a couple plates outside. That’s also added to your tab.”
“Oh, okay wait!” You came around the corner of a cutting station, arms still out in front of you like you were warding off a bear. “That’s why I'm here. I have a service I think would benefit you.”
“And what, pray tell, would that be?”
You put on your brightest smile and flared your arms out in front of you like you were a prize to behold.
“I’m a doctor.”
You expected a different reaction. A completely different reaction to him looking like he was about to make you fish food.
“Get out of my kitchen.”
“Did you hear me-“
“I heard you just fine, girl. What I need is for you to get out of my kitchen.”
The way he called you girl reminded you of Naan. It was the same tone that was used to tell you that you were in the way. You weren’t helping. You were just being a pain in the ass. There were more than a handful of times that you’d told Naan you could help; you knew enough to assist with minor surgeries. To help with childbirth when the women came in hollering and screaming like their body was being broken and molded anew.
You’d spent your whole life learning how to forage and create and heal. You knew you could help - that you could ease this man’s pain.
“No.”
When crystal blue eyes honed in on your position you refused to bend. You stared back at him and for the first time ever you squared your own shoulders in defiance.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. Your stump - I bet it hurts you something awful. The problem with prosthetics is that they still rub the skin - can bruise. What if I tell you that I can make you a salve that can alleviate that for you?”
He’d placed his hands on his hips somehow making him appear broader. He was trying to intimidate you, but he had nothing on a little old lady and her cane.
“She is really the best doctor in all of the East Blue. If your leg really does hurt you, why not let Doc try and see if it helps?”
He looked from Luffy and back to you - his eyes showing how undecided he was. You thought you were going to have to try again when he finally replied, “You got one hour before the second dinner. If it isn’t as good as you say I’m doubling what he owes me.”
The joy you felt at winning something was quickly taken from you as you resisted the urge to chase after him.
“Wait what?!”
The old man wasn’t going to answer you. He was too busy walking away, off to see something about food. You didn’t even get a chance to ask him for a pot or if he had any mortars in his kitchen. You glanced over at Luffy who was giving you two thumbs up and smiling his usual smile.
At least one of you believed in you.
You were about to remind him that you were left with nothing to use when the waiter from earlier, Zoro’s best friend, magically appeared. His jacket was now missing and the sleeves of his dress shirt were rolled up to expose his forearms.
“I’m assuming you’re in need of some assistance.”
A breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding released from you in a soft laugh of gratitude.
“Yes, please! I need a pot and mortar and pestle. If you can direct me where to get them-“
“No, I can get them for you. I live to serve.”
Sanji spared you one last parting smile before he moved swiftly around the kitchen collecting what you’d asked. Everything else you either already had in your satchel or you could easily run back to the ship to get. Somewhere in the back of your mind, when Sanji came back to hand you your requested items and winked, you swore you could hear Zoro’s teeth grinding in irritation.
Zeff, as you later learned from Sanji, had given you all of one hour to make your salve. You’d finished in forty minutes.
The kitchen had been cleared out and empty, which you learned was the usual between the break up in the first, second, and third dinner. It also meant it gave you ample time to look over Zeff’s leg. Not that the old man looked the least bit thrilled about it.
His rough exterior was making it hard for you not to be a little jumpy. Add in the extra audience of both Luffy and Sanji who seemed to be fascinated just from you removing the old man’s boot a little harder to work.
The minute you’d removed the wooden prosthetic from his knee you immediately could see the bruising. The hard rashes that bleed across the skin leaving angry marks that almost threatened to make the skin weep. You couldn’t keep the air from hissing between your teeth as you took in a sharp breath.
You could hear Zeff too. The way he tried to swallow back down a groan that threatened to become something close to a cry of pain. Gently, you set it aside and started getting to work. Your hands pull out clean linen and wrap from your satchel and the green chiterra you’d just harvested.
You got up from where you sat and poured warm water into a bowl Luffy just cleaned. Immediately, you placed a clean cloth inside until it was completely soaked and rung it out before you gently placed it on his stump. You could hear the whistle of pain flash between his teeth, but you didn’t look to see if he was glaring at you still. You continued to smash up the chiterra until it made a paste.
Once you knew everything was ready, you gently began to clean the skin; exposing the places where the rash had torn skin. In those areas you placed the chiterra and in the areas where no broken skin showed you deposited the salve. The minty scent enveloped the space and as you began to wrap up Zeff’s leg, you dared to peek at him.
“What is that smell? Mint?”
“Aloe Vera. It helps with burns and irritations on the skin. I figured it would help soothe your skin. Give you some relief.”
“Hmmm.”
It was a sound you’d grown up with. Naan made the same kind when she was unsure of what to say. When she wasn’t ready to admit you were right or that you’d proven yourself capable.
“There.” You huffed as you put the prosthetic back on. “Make sure you wash it at least once a day. The salve can be put on two to three times daily. Don’t be scared to be generous with it and-“ you pulled the piece of paper you’d written the measurements and ingredients on. Your fingers waving it back and forth in front of him just to make sure you had his attention. “I’ll give you the recipe if you knock off more than half of what Luffy owes you. Deal?”
“You really think your fancy medicine is worth more than my food?”
“Is it worth more than your comfort? You tell me: how does your leg feel now?”
You tried to hide your growing smile as you could see the battle Zeff was warring on in his head. While he was old and stubborn, you knew relief from pain of any kind was usually the path most took.
With a heavy sigh, Zeff put his hand out for the paper and you knew you had him. This time you did allow a cheeky smile to celebrate.
“Your Naan teach you to be a pain in the ass like this too?”
“Nope. That I’ve learned all on my own.”
“Sounds about right.”
You leaned back on the stool and watched as Zeff began to get up. The caution his body had grown accustomed too every time he moved was noticeable in his slow movements.
“I told you she was the best in all of the East Blue.”
Luffy looked so proud. You weren’t sure what you expected, but the amount of pride he radiated was something new to you. Sure, you’d had Naan tell you that you did good but it wasn’t the same. There was something about the way Luffy looked at people - really looked - to the point for the first time you felt seen.
Luffy didn’t just say he thought you were the best because he was trying to talk you up. He believed in you and what you could do.
“Yeah, that may be so, but you still owe me some clean dishes.”
“I’ll get right on it.”
He smacked the top of the chair he’d been sitting in as he got up. He didn’t argue or call for a rest. Luffy simply headed back towards the sink to finish on the load of dishes he’d left as they’d watched you work. The idea of him still slaving away in the space while you were all out there enjoying yourselves didn’t feel right.
“You should be able to go out with the rest of us and have a drink.”
“I’ll be alright here. You go on ahead and meet the rest of the crew. I’ll be with you guys soon enough.”
How soon? It didn’t feel right to leave him there. Even worse to bring over dishes you’d gotten dirty for him to wash in the end.
“At least let me wash these, Luffy.”
He’d opened his mouth to tell - what? To tell you to go again, most likely but you never actually heard him say it. Right when he was about to speak, Sanji was just there. His hands gently taking the dishes out of yours and walking over to place them beside the sink.
“How about I do these dishes for you.”
“Why would you do that?”
Sanji glanced away from you for a moment. His eyes focusing in on a memory, maybe. Whatever it was memory or thought, his eyes went into a thousand yard stare. One that was untouchable as the clouds. Finally, he turned to look at you and a touch of a smile was back.
“Zeff is cantankerous old shit bag but-“
“But he’s your cantankerous old shit bag. I get it.”
And you did. Naan and Zeff had a lot in common, specifically in their not-so-great parenting that wasn’t parenting skills. Even more so in the way they tried to make it seem like any help you tried to give wasn’t going to be good enough. You’d just come to realize that, while at first you’d hated Naan for always telling you it just wasn’t good enough, whatever you did, you realized as you got older it was because she knew you could do better. Would you have preferred a hug? A lighter lesson sharing a cup of hot chocolate? Hell yeah you would’ve but…this was okay too.
The closed smile Sanji wore cracked a little as you finished his sentence. A smile of realizing someone else understood seemed to make the tension ease from his shoulders just a bit.
“I’ll wash these up for you and let’s say, in return, you have a drink with me later.”
He’d remove the dish towel from his shoulders; his right hand tightened inside the fabric as he used it to prop himself up just a little. He was leaning against the counter with that soft, inviting smile still barely showing any teeth. You realized as you considered his offer you liked it better when he was smiling just a little too wide; all the flirting making him happier than he seemed now.
Fuck you wondered what Zoro would do if he knew what you were about to say? What did it matter anyways? It wasn’t like you belonged to each other or had feelings or…you know…whatever.
It was your turn to take your head out of the clouds and look back over at Sanji. He wasn’t being pushy. You were sure if you told him no he would be a gentleman about it. So, taking a deep breath you finally gave him your response.
“A drink would be good.”
What in the absolute hell’s were you doing?
In a matter of a millisecond, Sanji brightened up and it made your chastising fall short. It couldn’t be that big of a deal if it made him this happy, it could it?
“Great. I’ll finish up here and find you at the bar.”
“Alright. I guess I’ll see you in a bit then.”
You replaced your satchel over your shoulder and started to make your way towards the back door. You weren’t even sure where the bar was. Wherever it was you knew a certain Moss-haired swordsman would be there with the others.
“Good. It’s a date.”
You whirled around so fast the vertigo almost threatened to topple you over.
“Ugh, it is not a date.”
“Sounds like a date to me,” Sanji teased, his hand flipping the dish towel back over his shoulder.
He looked so smug. Why were all the men you were running into either smug, attractive, and a pain in the ass? Well, besides Luffy, that is. He was becoming your sunshine son whether he agreed or not.
“It sounds like a drink,” you responded.
Your feet were still carrying you to the back door, but you honestly couldn’t get there fast enough.
“A drink under the stars and hushed conversation.”
“To have a hushed conversation you have to be like this close,” using your hands you indicate the amount of space necessary to make that even a remote possibility, “and it’s in a crowded place, which means yelling.”
“You’re adorable you know when you’re all flushed like that.”
“Excuse me while I go throw myself overboard.”
“Doc! Make sure Nami or Usopp get you out!” Luffy called after you. “I won’t be able to go in.”
You weren’t going to tell him it was a figure of speech. He seemed so genuinely concerned that you would just throw yourself off that you kind of didn’t want to ruin the moment. One last glance at Sanji before you left out the back door, and you debated whether you were joking or not.
You weren’t exactly sure where you were heading, you just knew that there was the sound of music. Music usually meant very few things. Either someone was having a dinner party with music playing in the background, highly unlikely, or you were headed directly for the bar.
The bar where your crew mates were at. The bar that Zoro was at and the same bar Sanji would come looking for you at later. God, how soon was later? The thought made each new step you took sound more pronounced, louder than the last as you practically dragged yourself into the fish’s mouth.
It wasn’t an incredibly large space. It was pretty crowded already, and if it wasn’t for its size you would’ve worried you wouldn’t have been able to find them. Luckily for you, Usopp spotted you first and waved you over to the table they’d claimed right at the edge of the fish’s lip.
While Nami and Zoro were nursing a beer and whiskey, respectfully, Usopp apparently found a punch bowl. By the looks of said punch bowl and the glossy look hollowing out Usopp’s eyes, you knew you were going to need one just as big.
“Where did you get that fish bowl and do they have more?” You asked, removing your satchel and sitting down next to Nami.
“Nice of you to finally join us.”
“Oh, it’s so nice to be missed.”
You clutched your hands dramatically to your chest causing Nami to bump into you playfully in response.
“In all seriousness though, I’m going to need one of those fish bowls. ASAP.”
“I don’t know if you want one, Doc,” Usopp replied before taking another long pull from his straw. “It tastes just like candy. I don’t even think there is any liquor in this.”
“Pace yourself.” Zoro warned. “Last time I said that I ended up face down underneath a table.”
You leaned forward, your elbows resting on the small table, as you cupped your chin in your hands. You tried for cute and tried to smile that ended up squished between cheeks and hands.
“What were you doing under the table?”
“Napping,” he replied curtly.
“No one chooses to nap under a table in a bar.”
“I’ve napped in the crow’s nest on the Merry a few times.”
Yup. There was definitely liquor in that fishbowl.
“By the way, if you see Sanji let me know. I inadvertently may have slightly agreed to have a drink with him.”
“Nami’s boyfriend?”
“Nami’s what?”
“The waiter?!”
“He is not my boyfriend,” Nami protested a finger up to signify to Usopp to make a point, “and what is happening?”
“He asked after I fixed up Zeff’s - the big angry Chef - leg. I made a little salve for him to help take the pain away when he wore the prosthetic.”
“And somehow that led to you being asked for a drink?”
“I guess?” You shrugged.
“Man, I gotta try that,” Usopp mumbled as he took another long sip through his straws.
“I knew I shouldn’t have left you alone.”
Your eyes panned over to Zoro. His arms painfully tight across his chest and his jaw wasn’t faring any better. It looked painful. You wanted to remind him it was possible to get lockjaw just from grinding your teeth into dust.
“Well, I’m going to go get me a fishbowl.”
You remove yourself from your newly claimed spot and walk over towards the bar. The bartender himself seemed easy enough, happy to take your money, and even happier to take a tip as he handed over your drink. It was so heavy that you thought it would take you half a decade just to get it back to the table without spilling it. So, the best way to combat spillage was by starting to drink some down.
Usopp was right. They did taste exactly like candy.
When you arrived back at the table, it was noticeably more quiet. Nami’s eyes focused on her now empty glass that she swirled around in her hand. Zoro wasn’t looking at you, as per usual, as if you’d done something wrong and Usopp was busy finishing off his drink. You weren’t sure how to inject yourself back into a conversation that had grown stagnant. You weren’t born with the ease of conversation; not like Nami who always seemed to know what to do. When to smile and the right words to make someone open up. You’d only take a couple of sips of your drink when Zoro’s gruff voice sliced into the silence.
“What are you holding onto that is so heavy?”
He took a drink from his own glass as he waited for Nami to speak. To lift her head up or show any signs that she’d heard him.
“You guys seriously don’t think what Luffy did was messed up?”
You weren’t following. You were too busy taking another drink, eyes darting between the two of them. You felt silly. Obviously, whatever was bothering Nami wasn’t a secret. It wasn’t something she was holding close to ruin you all later, but whatever it was that weighed on her she felt Luffy had done something detrimental. Almost.
Zoro regarded her evenly before he set his glass back down on his thigh. His gaze looked away from her as he replied, “Yeah. He should’ve told us. But if you haven’t noticed we’ve been making enemies everywhere we go. Psycho clowns, killer butlers: what are the Marines going to do?”
“You don’t understand. I can’t get caught not when I’m so close-“
Nami looked ready to break. The tears of panic that edged at the corners of her eyes made all the earlier playfulness disappear. The sharpness of words you threatened to say to defend Luffy losing their edge as you watched her stare into her glass like it would be able to give her all the answers. To tell her it would all be okay.
Zoro looked between you and Usopp, who was doing his best to not be a part of this particular conversation. His lips wrapped around the straws buried deep in his drink and refused to let go.
Men.
You were about to reach out to her, to ask her if she was okay, really okay, not just the kind you pretend to be through words when a mask of a smile was back on her face. She set down her glass and gave a quick glance around the table before clapping her hands down on her bare legs and lifting up out of her seat.
“Who wants a drink? It’s on me.”
“That’s my favorite kind.”
“Of course it is.”
You ignored Zoro’s stare as Nami removed herself from the booth - from all of you. She was more than halfway to the bar when you reached over and smacked Zoro’s shoulder. He looked surprised for all of a second before he looked from his shoulder and back to you.
“‘That’s my favorite kind.’” You mimicked. “God, who says that?”
“Someone who likes free drinks?” Usopp offered up.
“You are both -“
“Impossible. We know.”
Shaking your head, you shimmied out of the booth and started making your way through the groups of people. You could barely see Nami up ahead with an older gentleman speaking to her. A spindle of curiosity began to weave its way inside your belly and filled your head with questions. He didn’t seem to be flirting with her or trying. No, they seemed to be discussing business.
“Nami.”
You spoke her name lightly the way you would an animal that was skittish. The hand you’d reached out to tap her shoulder falling short as she turned halfway to face you.
“Hey, Doc, what are you doing?”
“I came to check on you.”
Nami pulled a face, her shoulders shrugging just enough to brush off your words.
“I promise you, I’m just fine. I don’t need a check-up or anything like that.”
The bartender chose at that moment to set down a bottle of rum and four shot glasses, which Nami grabbed immediately. She thanked him with a smile and turned to head back to the table forcing you to practically run after her.
“Nami- Nami, wait!”
“What do you want?!”
The anger of her words forced you to take a step back. Your hands raised just to let her know you meant her no harm.
“Do you remember when I told you that you had a friend in Syrup village?”
“What about it?”
“While I didn’t stay in the village, I’m still your friend and while I may not be able to protect you like Zoro, or be full of sunshine and stretchy like Luffy, or hell, be as sharp as Usopp with a slingshot I’m still here for you. Does that make sense?”
“I think?”
“I Just- okay look I’m not good at this either. My only friend I had was Usopp and I’m not sure how to say this but if you need to talk or if anything is bothering you, you can tell me. I’m not going to judge you or you know…”
It all felt like it was going good in your head and then you breathed, started talking, and for some reason panicked. Bless Nami for finding it all vaguely amusing, from what you could tell, because the smile that graced her lips was the one you’d come to expect. Bright and full of the youth sometimes you feel like she’d missed.
“Why do you get so awkward at the end of long speeches?”
Her words were light and airy; full of the laughter that flowed through each one. You allowed her go wrap her arm around your shoulders as you both moved back to the table. Your own laughter threatening to burst at any minute.
“I don’t get awkward.”
You could hear the eye roll she gave as you both began to release one another. You wouldn’t fit in the booth this way if you didn’t.
“Every time. Without fail. You start off so strong.”
“I just get nervous that I’m not making any sense, especially when you’re saying things that matter.”
“What you said back there matters?”
She’d placed the rum and glasses down on the table. Usopp’s fishbowl long since emptied and Zoro was moving towards the bottle at Lightning speed, as if he couldn’t wait to meet oblivion. Before Nami disappeared back into the booth you gently grabbed her hand to stop her making sure she faced you completely before you spoke low enough for only her to hear.
“It matters because you matter to me, Nami. All jokes aside, just don’t forget I’m here for you.”
Her eyes pricked with the edge of tears but she quickly nodded and turned away from you. The only proof you’d gotten she heard you was the soft squeeze of her hand in yours just before she let you go.
“God, I don’t know which one of them is worse. Can that even be classified as dancing?”
Nami’s soft laughter filtered over to him and Zoro couldn’t help but respond with a smile. At some point, you’d dived head first into too many of the giant fishbowls, deciding not to heed his warning, and come out the other side completely and utterly shit faced. So, when Usopp asked you to join him out on the dance floor, you didn't hesitate. For the last hour, Zoro wished there was a camera around just to hold this moment hostage from time.
He watched as you did moves he was willing to bet, if you were sober, would flush your cheeks in the rosy hue he’d found himself becoming obsessed with ever since he’d placed that snowdrop behind your ear. Another moment that time had taken he’d hoped to have burned into his memory. The way you’d looked up at him shifted something inside him, and Zoro wasn’t sure if he could ever get it back, or if he even cared it was gone.
You were in the middle of your next move - one arm behind your head while the other was close to your side. Your shoulder rotating in strange circles as your body bounced off beat. Usopp had gone back to doing a shuffle beside you that broke you out of your dance and into his.
Zoro could feel a smile threatening to burst its way on to his lips. Quickly, he brought his beer up and took a long pull from the glass.
“You’re different with her.” Every word was punctuated. Slow. As if Nami was afraid saying it too fast would spook him.
He took the glass from his lips and set it back on his thigh. His hand still wrapped around the cool mug as he finally regarded Nami.
“I’m not different with anybody.”
“Well, that’s not true. You’re different with Luffy; with us. I’m betting you don’t look at us the way you look at her, though.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
It’s nothing.
God, he wanted it to be true. Even now, however, he could feel his neck straining to stay facing Nami’s direction. He wanted to look back and see what you were doing. To make sure you were safe.
And that waiter hadn’t magically appeared.
Nami must have known he was lying. She may have been a thief, but Zoro had come to realize her bullshit calling meter was the best he’d ever seen. She regarded him coolly with her brows raised in mock shock.
“I have eyes, Zoro. Unless you’re looking at me the same way when I’m not looking - it’s different.”
If he played it cool, kept his face free of emotion, and didn’t react he could still call her a liar. It was a solid plan that would’ve worked if his jaw hadn’t ticked in annoyance. Zoro wasn’t annoyed with Nami. He was annoyed at himself for being caught wanting something -someone - besides his goal.
He looked down into the safety of the amber liquid in his glass. Unsure of what - how - to begin to deny you hadn’t snuck in and taken a piece of him and called it yours. Luckily, he didn’t have to.
“Look,” Nami sighed. “I know you’ve got your own thing going on. Who doesn’t.”
“Why do I feel like there’s a but coming,” he grumbled.
“But it’s okay to still want other things too.”
Zoro allowed himself to look up from the safety of the glass and willed himself to appear emotionless as he considered her. His mind was still mulling over her words and what Nami could possibly be trying to get at.
“Oh yeah? Like what?”
“Like her.”
No.
In a flash, Zoro could see how simple it would be to have you. His imagination ran in a million directions, in a trillion scenarios of a life that held a path for you to walk with him. He almost gave in and allowed the warmth of the idea of touching you, knowing you, to consume him until a clash of swords resonated in his mind.
As fast as it was created, it was destroyed. He found himself back in the woods standing in front of Kuina, so full of fire and life. The determination lit a fire in her eyes until he could’ve sworn he’d be consumed.
“Until one of us is the greatest swordsman who ever lived.”
It was his goal then just like she had been his goal - and it had remained his goal even now. Zoro couldn’t allow himself to lose sight of that. It was his dream to be the world’s greatest swordsman, but it had also been hers.
Kuina.
Zoro could still see her there waiting for him. Dead and dried leaves crunching under her feet as she waited for him to meet her in the clearing, her eyes brimming with challenge.
Zoro could almost feel his muscles taut and ready to go to her. His thumb playing at the hilt of his sword, to pull it out in one smooth motion and come forward those last few feet in a class of steel. He could feel his feet moving and the sound of the leaves crunching under his weight. He was almost to her when the sound of laughter floating through the breeze like a wind chime forced him to stop. He didn’t know who or what it was, or why his first thought was you, but when he turned to glance behind him he felt his heart stop.
He was suddenly standing back in the lavender fields at Irkhaven. Zoro’s eyes scanned around until you were there, like Kuina, standing just out of reach. You were surrounded by a sea of purple and sunlight that only seemed to brighten as you smiled in his direction. It was the smile that warmed him down to his bones and made his chest ache for once with something other than sadness and guilt. Zoro wouldn’t dare think it - risk saying it - in case this was some kind of spell.
You spoke his name - beckoning him to follow you - just like Kuina. Underneath all of your softness you held your own fire, your own determination, that made you appear wild. The wind whipping at your hair and turning you ethereal amongst all the life that you held within your eyes.
Zoro could feel himself stuck between the place where he began and the place where he was going. Where you were waiting with Luffy, Usopp, and Nami. A place he never imagined his life would take him and yet…
The sound of Nami almost shouting his name shook him out of his thoughts and the sound of cracking glass filtered through moments later. He could feel the glass in his hand fracturing; dangerously close to collapsing inward if he squeezed harder. He set the weeping glass down and spared a glance to Nami as he removed himself from the seat.
“Hey, Zoro, are you okay?”
He hated how he could see the concern was etched into every crease of her features. The way she pretended to care. He made sure his hand was secured on the Wado Ichimonji before he stood to his full height. His eyes glancing over at you and Usopp now entrenched in a dance battle.
Suddenly, being inside the mouth of a fish made him feel like he was being swallowed whole. He couldn’t be near you - couldn’t risk confessing in the heat of a drunken moment that you had consumed him, mind and soul, and he wasn’t sure if he cared.
“I gotta go back to the Merry. Forgot something.”
“Forgot what? Zoro? Zoro!”
He didn’t look behind him to see what Nami was doing. Their earlier game of “guess my trauma,” officially over as he rushed towards the next dock. The pounding of his heart reminding him of the dangers of caring; of allowing yourself to get wrapped up in other people.
To this day, Zoro could still feel the ice that pierced his heart when he was told Kuina was gone. The way the world seemed to shift into madness and somehow remain the same. It was his mind that could no longer make sense of a world where she no longer resided. Zoro would’ve gone to the gates of hell to get her back if he could and with the searing vision of your smile, head whipped back in joy, Zoro felt that same exact emotion he’d felt over seven years ago.
He would tear the world apart to keep you in it and that was a confession he couldn’t afford to say.
For the last hour Zoro had been able to sit in the stillness of the ship and enjoy the silence. The only intrusive sound was that of things moving below the water and the of the wet stone sliding across the Wado Ichimonji.
It’d taken him longer than he’d ever admit to collect himself. His meditation hadn’t been able to clear his mind the way it usually did, and it wasn’t until he’d begun to take care of Kuina’s blade that his thoughts had ceased.
Of course, all good things were meant to come crashing down.
“How long do you think you’re going to hide out here and pout?”
Zoro’s wrist stopped mid-motion down the sword. His eyes unable to tear away from the moonlight gleaming on the blade just in case looking at you sent him reeling over the edge again.
Being alone with you on the Merry was about the worst thing that could happen to him. At least at the bar he would have continued to play twenty questions with Nami and been surrounded by plenty of sound to help drown out whatever was going on with him.
You aren’t focused.
But he was, wasn’t he? In the last seven years, Zoro had devoted himself to his training. To become stronger. Faster. The only swordsman to use three swords and earn the name of The Demon. With every waking hour Zoro was closer to becoming who he - who she - dreamed of being.
The sound of your footsteps drawing closer almost made him delirious. His hand tightening down on the wet stone before he set it down beside him. His eyes turned out to look once more into the endless midnight in front of him.
“Who says I’m hiding?”
His voice sounded rough, like it hadn’t been used in months. He picked up the rum he’d taken from his room and took a swig to clear his throat and his senses. By the time he finished taking his drink, you were standing beside where he sat on the crate. Your arms wrapped around your middle with your hip cocked looking like you were ready to give him hell.
I am hiding.
It was the only clear thought he had as his eyes adjusted to your presence. Your eyes were glassy from the alcohol even though you were trying to make it seem like you were sober, he guessed. But Zoro could tell you were tipsy with the way you swayed along with each push of the ocean’s wave against the ship.
He and Nami were going to have a talk about dressing you next time. Every part of you felt exposed to him and yet, it wasn’t enough. It was all just a game, teasing him constantly no matter what angle he looked at it. What was even worse was how the moon highlighted you in light and half in shadow.
“I say you are and we both know I’m usually right.”
A sly smile slid across his lips before he could stop it. His eyes transfixed while you took the finishing steps until you stood before him. With your arms back down at your side you felt more open to him, vulnerable somehow. It was the look in your eyes that told him why.
Maybe he wasn’t just imagining it too but what did it prove? You were both idiots on a sinking ship. Looking up at you now, the way you shamelessly devoured every inch the moonlight provided your eyes he knew you’d both happily drown.
“Is that so?”
“It’s the new unwritten rule on the ship.”
“Guess I’m going to have to have a talk with Luffy about that.”
“He’s still in the kitchen finishing up dishes if you want to be a good first mate and help him.”
“I should go help him.”
“The waiters in there with him, though.”
“He doesn’t need my help that bad.”
Zoro wasn’t sure what it was that made your head fall back the way it did. What it was that caused you to laugh the way you did with your hand covering your mouth as if it was enough to silence it. He didn’t know what he did, but he swore he would do it again just to see you like this.
“Is that why you are hiding out on the ship? Afraid of some competition?”
You went to sit down next to him and his hand reached out to grab you by your hip to stop you. It was meant to be a gesture to get you to stop. Instead, his hand slid under the fabric of the corset and he could hear the audible sharp whistle as you sucked in a breath. He wondered if you would let him keep it there, if you’d let him pull you closer until you were perfectly positioned between his legs.
As fast as his hand and touched you it retreated and it was his turn to stand.
“Let’s cut the chit chat. I have something better in mind.
“You seriously think now is a good time to train?”
You couldn’t believe it. Your brain was still a mess from seconds ago when his hand somehow found its way under your clothes. The way he’d looked up at you, you half expected him to pull you closer. The hunger that flashed in obsidian eyes was enough to make you think you were about to find out just how plush his lips might actually be.
As fast as it happened it ended and the disappointment was raw in your chest. Zoro, on the other hand, looked right at home.
“Why not? Did you have something else in mind?”
Yes.
“No,” you grumbled.
You were most definitely not pouting.
“Good. First, you have to fix your stance.”
“Okay, how should I be-“
A scream of shock left you as you nearly jumped out of your skin. You turned just in time to see him slide the handle of a sword back inside the sheath. The same one that he’d used mere seconds ago to smack against your bare thigh.
“Did you just spank me with your sword?”
God, he looked too pleased with himself.
“I could do it again, if you like.”
You could feel your mouth opening and closing. You didn’t know what to say. Yes, please do? That felt too desperate and yelling at him would do nothing but prove you did like it in some weird way.
Shit. Your cheeks were burning.
“How about we just direct me, verbally, like a normal sensei would do.”
“You could also call me master, instead of sensei, if you like.”
Zoro had stepped close to you - close enough if you leaned back just an inch you would be against him. His words were dripped heavily with teasing, but the way the husk of his tone whispered along your skin like a caress threatened to make your knees buckle.
This was supposed to be training for god sake. Clearing your throat, you dared to lean your head back just enough it rested on his chest. Your eyes batting up at him as you replied, “Or I can just call you an asshole.”
A heavy sigh blew through his nose as he stepped away from you, almost sending you falling on your ass.
“Do you even have a weapon?”
“There are pots in the kitchen,” you deadpanned.
Zoro looked at you like he would throw you over the side of the ship at any minute.
“I mean a real weapon.”
“My knife is in my satchel.”
You both stood there staring at one another. You weren’t sure what he was expecting you to do. If you were just magically supposed to make your satchel appear or leave to go get it. Zoro wasn’t saying much. He was just standing there one hand on his sword and a thumb tucked into his sash.
“Are you going to keep staring at me all night or are you going to go get it?”
Whatever tension that had been brimming between you, unspoken words, or anything else was instantly gone. All of it exploded by his usual rigid posture and dead-eye stare that only moments ago made you believe that maybe, just maybe, your drunken mind wasn’t as delusional as you thought.
“When I come back you better be ready to get your ass kicked,” you seethed.
You went to turn on your booted heel when a strong wave rocked the ship and almost sent you toppling forward. You’d braced yourself for impact; your knees colliding once again with the wood or possible scraps to your hands and bare legs.
Instead, your back collided with a warm body with a forearm locked around your middle keeping you impossibly tight against them. The scent of sandalwood and skin melded together flooding your scenes until your brain was in overload.
You looked back and found his face mere inches from yours. So close you could feel the heat of his breath along your jaw tempting you to close those last few inches. For a brief moment you thought you’d unlocked some new form of drunken bravery inside of you, but all of it came crashing down when Zoro let go and stepped away.
“Maybe I should walk back with you. You don’t seem like you’re able to walk.”
“Okay.”
You didn’t know what else to say. Should you tell him to come close again? Should you tell him that while he was equally the most infuriating human on the planet you somehow couldn’t imagine a space where he wasn’t in it?
How could knowing someone for only a short while turn into…this.
You knew you wouldn’t say any of it. Not even enough liquor in the world could get you to tell Roronoa Zoro, The Demon, that you had a crush on him just as deadly as he was.
So, you turned on your heel and headed back towards the giant mouth of the fish. The steady sounds of Zoro’s heavy footsteps right behind you until you finally made it back into the bar. You’d only gotten a few steps to the table when you realized something was wrong. A man in a trench coat and large hat with a feather was standing in front of Nami and Usopp. They didn’t appear frightened but…why was he there?
“Oh, hey guys! This is my new best friend-“ Usopp stated.
Nami softly smacked him on his chest as she cut in, “This is not our friend.”
The man in question turned to stare at Zoro and you. His eyes sunflower yellow with swirls like a bullseye within making you almost take a step back from him. You bummed back into Zoro and this time when you looked at him he no longer looked unreadable. He was looking at this man like he was a godsend - a dream come true in the form of curled mustaches and oversized feathers.
“You’re Dracule Mihawk.”
“I have business with your captain. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll hand him over.”
“Well, we don’t know anyone named Luffy, do we guys? Zoro?”
You’d been so enamored by Mihawk’s appearance you hadn’t realized Zoro had moved around you. His eyes still fastened to him as he moved around to face him.
“I’ve been following your career since I was a child. It’s an honor to finally meet you, sir.”
“Thank you.”
Mihawk looked bored out of his skull.
“Which is why it pains me to inform you that tomorrow you’re going to die.”
“Wait, what?”
“What the actual fuck…”
Your words came out as an uttered whisper. You were too shell shocked to say more - do more. It felt like you were watching this whole interaction through the lense of a telescope on a distant island where idiots roamed free.
“I, Roronoa Zoro, challenge you to a duel to the death.”
“What the actual fuck! Zoro!”
This time you were loud. Much louder than you wanted with every syllable ringing out your panic like a dinner bell.
“I’ve never heard of you.”
“They call me the Demon Pirate Hunter. But my lifelong dream is to best you in single combat and become the greatest swordsman in the world.”
“You’re serious.”
“Accept my challenge and I’ll show you how serious I am.”
“Very well. Tomorrow at dawn and when I’m done with you Pirate Hunter I’ll take your captain.”
No. No. No - “No.”
Your head was still ringing out with the word. Unable to comprehend what in the actual hell had just happened. You’d come back to get your small cutting knife. He was supposed to be training you right now back on the deck of the Merry. This was wrong. All wrong.
Nami leaned forward from her seat. Her own worry was bleeding into her eyes, her voice, as she asked, “What in the hell did you just do?”
You were still trying to figure that out when Zoro turned and walked away leaving dread the size of a crater to worm its way inside your chest.
As always, thank you all so much for reading. Comments and reblogs are always appreciated.
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#Chaos in Their Bones#ongoing series#one piece#one piece live action#opla zoro#roronoa zoro#ronoroa zoro#roronoa zoro x reader#roronoa zoro x you#opla zoro x reader#opla zoro x you#opla#one piece x reader#one piece x you#op zoro#opla fanfiction#one piece fanfiction#frenemies to lovers#slow burn#friends to lovers#mutual pining
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This is a copy/paste of a reply I did to this post. I'm putting it in its own post because I genuinely need people to understand that saying Duke is unpopular because he's 'new' or unknown only furthers the racism Black characters face in fandom. This extends to the sexism Babs and Steph face, and the double racism/sexism that Cass faces.
For everyone in [this post's] notes saying [Duke's unpopularity in fanfiction] is because Duke is new, that's part of it, but absolving fandom of responsibility is misguided and sweeping both racism and sexism under the rug. The newness argument doesn't explain why Damian has more fics than Cass, Stephanie, and Babs, who all predate him.
More importantly: Jon Kent, who was introduced one year after Duke in 2015, has a total of 3,144 works under 'Jonathan Samuel Kent' and 9,280 works under 'Jon Kent'. That is 12,424 fics - around 5,000 more than Duke, despite debuting at roughly the same time.
The adaptation argument (that the ones who are more adapted are more likely to be written about) is also flawed - Tim has 3 major TV show appearances (The New Batman Adventures, Young Justice, and Titans). He cameos in Superman: The Animated Series, Static Shock, and an episode of Justice League. For films, he appears in two DCAU movies, Batman Unlimited, Gotham by Gaslight, Batman Ninja, and Death in the Family. That's 12 total appearances in film and TV.
By comparison, Barbara has an entire Wikipedia page dedicated to adaptations of her. She appears in 8 animated films, 6 animated Lego films, and has 5 animated film cameos. This is already more adaptations than Tim. Add to that 60s Batman, the Birds of Prey show, Titans, Gotham, DC Super Hero Girls, BTAS, Batman Beyond, Gotham Girls, The Batman, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Young Justice, Beware the Batman, Teen Titans Go!, Harley Quinn, Batman: Caped Crusader, and the live action Batman & Robin, that's 35 total appearances across film and TV.
Barbara Gordon as Batgirl is undeniably more popular to the general public than Tim Drake as Robin, and her film and TV adaptations also outnumber Jason's (13, with 90% of those being pictures of him because he's dead) and Damian's (15). So if she should be more popular than Tim in every supposed metric (longevity, adaptations, even name recognition), you have to ask yourself: why is she less popular in fandom?
To return to Duke Thomas, if you're even a casual Batman fanfic reader you would know that most of his tagged fics are not about him. Duke has 7,042 tagged fics, and of those, 242 works are tagged as Duke Thomas-centric. By contrast, Tim Drake has 62,704 total works, with 3,809 tagged Tim Drake-centric. That means 3.4% of Duke fics are tagged as Duke-centric, whereas 6% of Tim fics - almost twice as much - are Tim-centric. This is not a perfect metric by any means (for example, Dick actually has less than Duke with 2%, though this is due to him having a bonkers amount of fics), but it is illustrative of the trend that literally anyone who's skimmed AO3 could tell you.
More comparisons: Jason Todd (2,990/76,427 = 3.9%), Damian Wayne (1,870/45,635 = 4%), Cassandra Cain (200/17,060 = 1.1%), Barbara Gordon (54/16,729 = 0.3%). Keep in mind not everyone uses the -centric tag, but this is generally useful to see broad trends.
If debut date, adaptations, popularity among the public, amount of canon content, or presence in major Batman events were truly the deciding factor, Barbara would be the second most popular character in fandom (behind Dick). However, she isn't. Even Dick isn't the most popular - Tim, despite his lack of adaptations, is clearly the Batboy centred most in fanfiction and fandom. Therefore, the treatment of Babs, Steph, Cass, and Duke in fandom cannot be attributed purely to lack of knowledge.
Blaming fandom's focus on the White- or White-passing boys on canon is ignoring the signs of racial and gendered biases in the way we latch onto characters. Fandom barely cares about canon - most Titans Tower AUs or family fluff blatantly ignore huge chunks of comics. If we can ignore Gotham War, make up lies about Red Robin (2009), and pretend Tim's allergic to shrimp, why can't we extend that imagination to the POC and female characters? Why are they less worthy of our efforts to make stories about them, whether they have canon/adaptational histories or not?
All this to say, trying to explain away the lack of works for Duke and the girls will not solve anything. Making excuses for the fandom is only perpetuating the racist and sexist erasure of these characters. Instead, read their comics! Here is a list of reading guides for POC characters.
Not interested in comics? Read these Duke fics (compiled by @himejoshiangels)! Also take the time to go through the Barbara Gordon-centric tag and support those creators. Feel free to post any recs of your own as well :).
#duke thomas#cassandra cain#barbara gordon#self... repost? I guess?#i just need people to read through this#you don't have to agree but i'd prefer people think before they make another excuse for why people don't write about duke/steph/cass/babs#batman#tim drake#jason todd#dick grayson#damian wayne#stephanie brown#the intention is not to make anyone feel guilty for preferring the four batboys#but to stop pretending that the general trend of the batboys being the favourites isn't rooted in racism and sexism#you can still have the batboys as your fav!! they're excellent characters!!#but duke isn't less popular because he's a lesser character or even because he's new or unknown
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Why RWBY can't come back
The last news we got of RWBY was all the way back in July, when it was acquired by VIZ Media.
This much serves as a hard letdown for anyone who was hoping Dillon Goo and his studio could acquire the property, as VIZ Media is owned by freaking Shueisha, aka the guys who run Shonen Jump. It is unlikely to be sold back to a smaller studio.
VIZ Media buying it was a baffling choice to begin with, as RWBY isn't nearly as eternally-profitable as some of the other ventures it's been focusing on, such as Bleach and animating its Thousand Year Blood War arc. I suppose RWBY doesn't make for an ill fit when considering that it can simply languish on a shelf generating endless merch sales at a slow but steady pace over the years--VIZ Media is in charge of many, many series, and all of its biggest properties are surrounded by a haze of particle-sized smaller properties whose only real purpose is to add to the cumulative money flow in towards the studio.
But it does mean that Volume 10 of RWBY, in sharp contrast to what diehards crowed about when the acquisition was announced, is almost certainly not coming. VIZ Media's main practice is taking control of works that start in serialization form, usually manga, and adapting them, not generating whole new content. If VIZ Media even did feel like continuing the RWBY Saga, it would depend on:
other writers being welcomed into the room, because VIZ Media is a large corporation and is very unlikely to adhere to any fandomized purist idea that only Miles and Kerry should write for it and be credited with it,
other writers actually wanting to be associated with a series that is so badly stigmatized on the internet now. If you're Rooster Teeth, it won't be hard, you can pick from a pool of fans who will sell their souls to do so (and who cares about any quality), but VIZ wouldn't even glance in the direction of a tactic like that.
And if so, there's no real telling what it would look like, which is the axe coming down for the remaining RWBY fanbase, who are volatile and hostile and protective of what they think RWBY should be (i.e., Miles and Kerry). If VIZ Media is stupid, they'll plow ahead with this anyway, generating almost no profit because RWBY's tiny remaining fandom won't associate with it and RWBY's very large ex-fandom also isn't interested in it, thus falling into that Nintendo-style hole of making something no one asked for and then wondering why it didn't sell.
It would be much more in line with VIZ' profit-lined goals to maximize the revenue trickling into RWBY with another spinoff series like Ice Queendom or the manga series, which won't actually advance the story forward but will sate people expecting a Volume 10 at some point and merely needing any form of content to assure themselves it's inevitably coming.
Unfortunately, that means RWBY as a rebooted series with actual writers is also probably off the table, because VIZ Media are unlikely to do something they view as risky even if they think profit could be generated from it; the safer option is the trickle rather than hoping to strike a renewed spirit in fans.
And so RWBY is very likely to have the ultimate fate that I had naively thought we'd avoided back in May: spinning its wheels on the shelf of anime limbo for eternity rather than rebooting or dying peacefully.
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Now that there's an animated adaptation of Midnight Sun coming, and given the industry's recent track record (see: Minecraft Movie), what's the worst, bad faith, cash grab adaptation idea you can imagine? I figure if we inoculate ourselves then the reality won't suck so much.
My nightmare: Streaming has a long history of making shitty attempts at "adult animation", so we'll get an Edward who constantly cusses and does lewd jokes. It'll be like the HBO adult animated Velma (Scooby Doo) show where the writers' disdain for the characters fills every scene. The first episode will focus on how Carlisle helps plan a murder of some overly suspicious deputy so they can keep living in Forks.
Anyways, worst case theories? So we can feel better when it's not THAT bad? Or else use the apollo prophecy meme on your post a year or two from now.
My 'realistic' prediction
Twilight: The Edgy Animated Adult Series with Twelve Times More Drugs and Swearing
Oh man, yours is worse than mine. I mean this guessing the future business is a little silly in general, but I think that wouldn't happen as Twilight's not...
How do I put this?
Scooby Doo is a beloved, vintage, IP that's so well-known it's a part of American culture/Americana. It's in that weird place where it's acceptable to do edgy reboots of it because everyone already knows the premise of the Scooby gang, each individual character, the bad guys, and their mysteries.
You don't have to explain who any of the characters are supposed to be, so you get a "ah ha ha ha isn't it funny that Velma swears now?" because you know she's from a 1960's cartoon.
Twilight's not quite old enough for that and, at least in my opinion, not pervasive enough for that. It was a huge sensation, but was never as big as HP, and dominated only a subset of the YA audience (female-targeted YA romance). Ask a person off the street and the most they can probably, maybe, tell you is "sparkly vampires and Team Edward and Team Jacob". So, at best you get riffs like we saw when Twilight came out with the Simpsons and various other parodies where the parodies... really didn't know what to do with the characters or what it was even about. "Milhouse turns into a poodle, I guess? Is that funny? It's funny, right?"
Twilight just isn't old enough and as big as it was, I don't think was widespread enough.
So, I think we're going to get an earnest reboot.
But you do now have me concerned. And I may be eating my words later on this post and reblogging with a clown face.
Other Theories
Alright, let's see what we've got/what we can come up with:
Yours: HBO adult comedy horror fest
Mine: Boring, Snoozeville, Tame, Generically Arted Palatable Twilight that is Designed to Be as Appealing as Possible
Other options I can think of are...
Interview with a Vampirepalooza/Oh God I Don't Know What's Popular: given the recent success of Interview with a Vampire, an edgier adult story with adult characters, Netflix will look to make Twilight their exact own version of that. Except they won't understand what made it work there. We sexy it up but in a CW way, the kids are all still in high school but the fact that the Cullens are fucking each other is brought up relentlessly in an edgy way. The vampires all look hot, hot, hot but in a normal human way where you're not terrified they're some crystal robot out to eat your limbs. We'll keep some of the artsy weird dialogue, but Edward will be both somehow made more sympathetic (as he is the lead we end up with) and 'dark' where he's dangerous in a sexy way and not in a "you smell like my personal heroin way".
The Buffy Route: remember that one teen show from the 90's that was so good it spun off an entire genre of television that essentially hadn't existed before? Twilight becomes a fun teen oriented show where the characters say witty, fun, teenage-like things and get into episodic mysteries while somehow trying to remain in the realm of Twilight. Edward loses his edge, Bella loses her unrelatable nature, and we really play up every time a character has a funny line and write a lot more in there. Unfortunately, it's not a well written teen comedy show and so the lines are just generally bad and the plot never seems to go anywhere and it's just boring.
Hannibal the Twilight: some really artsy director gets involved and we now have a show where the symbolism of Edward walking around as a man-deer takes over the entire fucking thing. Nothing ever happens, Edward just shows up in Bella's dreams as a snarling man deer. When characters talk to each other, it's in artsy nonsense dialogue where it feels like both are reading 2000's era chatbot scripts to one another as they mix metaphors about ponies, china pottery, and dust motes. The plot is so non-existant the only important episodes to watch in a season are the premier and finale, except even then it's unclear what happened.
Audience Input
Anyone else got any wild guesses here?
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Greed is every sin
Just as openly elitist power abuser Stolas is the best villain of either series in this Helluverse, Mammon manages to be the greatest sin of all and for a similar reason, being multifaceted via many efforts made to sway our thinking, yet these two are then taken in different directions.
So much range does 'greed' have that he even encapsulates the 'sins' we have yet to meet.
Of those we have met, Ozzie, Bee and over in Pride, Lucifer, Mammon has managed to showcase actions of their sins in his own greedy way. Greed has a bit of everyone, but vise versa? Not if they're supposed to be liked.
A totally desexualised character but blamed for the sexdolls of a famous character whoes 'dayjob' is entertaining at a kinky nightclub, run by the prince of lust. Even though he markets the dolls as multipurpose, fit for everyone at a very affordable price, the sex element is his fault. The dolls were clearly a collaboration and something thought up before a reference was chosen, Ozzie catches feelings for their references and feels he should no longer able to separate business from his personal feelings, whilst Mammon manages to prosper in business in a field that isn't his.
Lust ✅
A glutton for the sake of being a glutton, no need for celebration just mindless or stress eating, which fits well as greed and gluttony often go together, taking because it's there.
There's also the deliberate fat design intended to make him more grotesque. 'Gluttony' does not need to be fat, yet the 'Gluttony' we met simply wanted the party goers indulged, however Ozzie wanted his patrons to keep it sexy and Mammon collected cash during the pageant, they did as much as eachother, only the efforts to make him piggish only took away from Bee's thing.
Gluttony ✅
Showy and performative but happy to take the backseat, is seen working and mentoring, adapts to what's new, what works and what others want but also bold enough to openly share selfish motive. As involved and inappropriate as his behaviour may seem he's all business, willing to work with those who don't like him and invest in what doesn't interest him without buckling or offsetting.
Mammon succeeds as a ruthless, confident, both proactive and passive leader who doesn't come across as someone who casually hangs with 'commoners' and whose true influence and power is unknown.
Pride ✅
Way too attentive to be lazy, but, what do people have to say about a boss who puts their feet up and fails to do what they're more than capable of doing, rather, they get others to do? Mammon supposedly 'not doing clown stuff anymore' and Fizz being 'a better clown than he ever was' as according to Ozzie are statements that means little, he wanted a prodigy, we saw imagery of training arc he showcases entertainers in order to fulfil his greed and his trade gets acknowledged. Ozzie has a seedy nightclub where those who work their or visit are expected to behave in a sexy way and Bee expects her guests to indulge, what's the difference? They meet their sin quota whilst not showing us any form of trade outside of being a host, why is Mammon condemned for as in a leading example of laziness? If we're scaling laziness, where does this leave poor, yet to be introduced Belphahor?
Relaxation pairs with recovery, research shows that the Sloth ring has the hospitals and is also responsible for 'upper' medication. Nice right? Something positive, which is where all those we are to like lean towards. That and Bee seems to be friends with her.
Sloth ✅
Spring boarding onto the next sin, Wrath, someone who has been described as attractive (by Bee) and is seen as a leader and god to the imps. It helps to be liked. This is hell where anything supposedly goes, murder is fine but not sadness, sadness isn't a sin but what else is everything, irate. Mammon was allowed to not only be big and menacing but pose a threat to someone who would be frightened of their fallout, allowed to resort to blackmail when he didn't like how things were going and allowed to vow revenge before taking off and trashing the place and maybe even killing his audience who bore witness on his way out, in a rather composed way.
Wrath ✅
Looloo land being a ripoff of Lulu land is so clearly a display of greed, especially since Looloo land is poorly maintained dispite Mammon being a perfectionist, this ripoff could easily be an example of envy, a grasp at control born from following a definitive leader who seems no leader at all, but can do what he wants because this is his realm.
Wlillingness to rip off such a superior, block effort at takedown with an impenetrable contract and still maintain (according to research) a good relationship with shows caution, calculation and willingness to fight.
Mammon even has his face on hell's currency and a banking app, yet who exactly is he supposed to be paying tax to? Lucifer, hells actual owner who doesn't seem to be a leader? Or are they answering to those 'higher up' which places Mammon in the frustrating position of second fiddle to a boss who isn't the best?
We haven't met Envy/Leviathan yet, but we have a host of main characters who live contemptuous lives and look to what others have that they don't, so envy, like wrath affects everyone, have been prominent driving forces since the start along with sadness and tragedy which aren't sins.
Envy ✅
Mammon manages to encompasses all elements of sinning even when he shouldn't really because it's by proxy as someone whose actions are portrayed as self serving and cruel with no excuses or failure to acknowledge, someone who upsets and can be harmful to those we are supposed to root for, something these series shy away from when they want us to like a character. We have a demon who succeeds in being someone you have no business getting mixed up with, in hell, a place you shouldn't want to be, where he is a crowned leader who is after your money if you're lucky.
Greed ✅
#helluva boss mammon#helluva boss critical#hazbin hotel critical#hazbin hotel lucifer#helluva boss ozzie#helluva boss beelzebub
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The Astrology Behind: “The Chronicles of Narnia” Pt.3
This is the continuation of an analysis of this series of books and movie adaptations with a heavy focus on breaking down the natal charts of not just the author but characters as well. My intention is to find the associations behind his literature with astrology. If you'd like to read or revisit the previous posts before reading further, please check them out below:
Part #1
Part #2
The movies that have been released so far are all related to the books that have this planetary associations:
Jove (Jupiter): The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Mars: Prince Caspian
Sol (the Sun): The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
In this part we will be going over the charts of one of the oldest female characters, and discover the patterns behind her natal configuration and the relation to the story, titles, background, characters, etc.
Susan - The Gentle
Anna Popplewell has her Sun in Sagittarius (Mula), Moon in Pisces (Uttara Bhadrapada), Mercury in Sagittarius (Mula), Venus in Scorpio (Anuradha), Mars in Pisces (Revati), Jupiter in Taurus (Krittika), Saturn in Sagittarius (Mula), and Rahu/Ketu axis in Aquarius (Shatabhisha)/Leo(Purva Phalguni). There isn't any birthtime available for her, and I'm unsure of what her ASC might be so I will not discuss her appearance.
In the series, Susan is the eldest sister who is supposed to be a "mother" to her youngest siblings, and even to her older brother. She's the one who steps into giving words of wisdom and soft guidance towards all the others, which is very fitting of her Sagittarius energy. She's serious and somber, yet still has an adventurous heart.
A lot of her energy is concentrated around Mula nakshatra. This section of Sagittarius carries the symbol of roots from trees which aren't directly visible, yet keep the whole structure together and fully alive. In the movie she acts as one of the main foundations that keeps her two brothers from tearing their faces off, and her little sister from feeling far to alienated. Her work and actions are not always the most visible, but her presence and importance is essential in all the movies (even the ones where she isn't around).
These natives are also great detectives and can find the root issue of any situation. The deity of Mula nakshatra is Nirriti, the goddess of destruction. This divine influence gives natives a very fierce nature, and it's specially noticeable when anyone gets in the way of their siblings. Since their yoni animal is the dog, they also function best within packs and will become very vicious towards anyone who wounds them. Conversely, they will also remember fondly and treat kindly anyone who treats their loved ones well.
Since their nakshatra lord is Ketu, there's always an air of mystery that creates confusion within others. Similarly to a black hole, they have the ability of pulling everyone to their orbit easily, and just as we read it on textbooks anything that goes in is never seen to leave in the exact same way. Those who become close to Mula natives are transformed spiritually in a way that often feels confusing or magical. All Ketu nakshatras leave people feeling in awe in general.
Susan has this energy that also seems to draw others in and forces them to pay attention to her every word, which is common for anyone who carries Jupiter's influence very strongly. From her own little sister who feels jealous or envious of her beauty and confidence, to the prince Caspian who is left utterly surprised by her as well. She's very independent throughout all of the films, and her character never truly changes, but it sure causes others to grow willingly or not.
Her Moon being in Pisces, specifically Uttara Bhadrapada, and ruled by Saturn also has a huge role into her big sister persona as well. She's kind, empathetic, dreamy, yet troubled in her own ways. Saturn ruled individuals always have to take upon themselves many responsibilities that mimic the ones of a parent, and in the movie she's literally the replacement of her own mother. They are also very spiritual and are able to reach wealth easily through their own efforts due to past and current life karma.
Another interesting observation from this nakshatra made by Astrologer and Occultist Claire Nakti here is that they often end up marrying a rich husband, or coming into wealth after dealing with really harsh obstacles. The same pattern seems to continue with Susan when in the second film she ends up attracting the attention of *drumrolls* a literal prince too, so the connection between wealthy spouses, royalty, and Saturn seems to be ever present in all water signs, but specially in Pisces.
In terms of her association with the books and films, we can see her having a main role with plenty of presence during the first one with her Sagittarius and Pisces placements taking the lead since "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" are ruled by Jupiter.
In the second one ruled by Mars, she has a special connection with prince Caspian who happens to have his Moon in Aries (coincidence? I think not). Now, the best part of it all is that she has Mars as her Atmakaraka, meaning that her soul lesson and journey is towards learning how to be courageous, a leader, yet not using violence to resolve conflicts. The prince who was very much ready for war and destruction in order to gain his kingdom back was destined to connect with her. The both of them understood and learned the value of standing their ground without having to encourage a slaughter of lives from both sides.
In the last film she doesn't really make an appearance at all as a main character, and only does show up when her younger sister gives into temptation by unknowingly choosing a spell that allowed to take upon her life. She wished to be just as beautiful and appealing as her older sister. I find it pretty ironic that in the movie that's ruled by the Sun, she is withdrawn and fully absent yet still makes others drawn to them like magnets, all while having her own Sun ruled by Ketu.
Thank you so much for reading and continuing on enjoying my analysis of these beautiful movies. It fills me with child-like nostalgia to write down about these characters, and brings real enjoyment to see the astrological connections of it all. Stay on the look out for the next part!
Xox
Mary from multidimensionalguidance
#astrology#astro observations#astro community#astro placements#astro notes#astroblr#astrology lessons#vedic astrology#vedic#sidereal astrology#sidereal#chronicles of narnia#sagittarius#pisces#mula nakshatra#uttara bhadrapada#nakshatras#nakshatra#vedic astro observations#vedic chart#vedic astro notes#sidereal chart#jupiter
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hi Lumi, your posting about star wars books made me want to start reading them, which ones would you recommend?
Hi! There are a lot of Star Wars books out there and there's a lot I enjoy about them! Sure, I'll give a warning that I'm picking out the best moments and a lot of the books are not always great in their entirety, especially depending on how much you want to stay 100% true to Lucas' story.
A lot is going to depend on what you're looking for--are you a prequels fan? Are you more interested in original trilogy books? Jedi-centric books? Bounty hunters or pilots instead? Etc. Generally, I assume if you're asking me, you're here for the prequels books, but I have a more generalized list of recommendations here or you can browse my novels recs tag.
But I always generally recommend starting with: - Revenge of the Sith novelization by Matthew Stover isn't a perfect book, I could nitpick some details here and there, but the heart of this book remains unchallenged as the best SW book there is, imo. It elevates the story it's adapting (already a high bar for me, I love ROTS), Stover knows how to turn a phrase to dig deep into a character's motivations, and there's a reason why we're all constantly quoting that book. It adds so much to the story and it's a compelling tale on its own, it makes me love the characters and hurt for them all over again, and there's approximately a thousand lines in this story that you could write an entire essay on.
- Padawan by Kiersten White cannot dethrone the ROTS novelization, but I would say that I think it wound up being my favorite of the Disney era books, because it's such a straight shot to my id. It's definitely on the lighter side, it's a happier look at Obi-Wan's childhood (which I think fits his character better), he struggles and has a lot going on, but overall he's pretty well-adjusted and happy, plus there is an absolute ABUNDANCE OF CUTENESS in this book, it was so delightful and whimsical and adorable, it just made me happy.
- Light of the Jedi by Charles Soule if you're at all interested in The High Republic. This is still my favorite book of the entire series, I think it set the stage incredibly well, it had some absolutely banger lines for someone with prequels brainrot like me, and genuinely made me excited for the entire line-up.
- Dooku: Jedi Lost by Cavan Scott, which is an audiodrama but has a script version available if you're hoh or just don't like them. It's a solid look at Dooku's time as a youngling and why he left the Jedi Order and backstory with Sifo-Dyas that'll break your heart. I prefer the audio version here because the Asajj framing works so much better with the actress' voicework, it really digs into her feelings about all of this as well, making it a nice gut-punch of a story.
And now I would add Padawan's Pride by Brian Q. Miller (audiobook only, unfortunately) because it's a lovely, charming look at Anakin's time as an apprentice. It's very deliberately written as a lead-in to the Obi-Wan & Anakin comic (which I think you're supposed to be keeping in mind as you read, so I'd suggest reading in release order rather than chronological order), showing the conflict between Obi-Wan and Anakin, between Anakin the Jedi way of life, yet all the love that's growing there and the hope that they weren't wrong to hold onto. Just the right amount of crunch and sweet.
I recently read The Living Force by John Jackson Miller and, while I have a couple of issues with it (it was less spiritual than I'd like, some clunky "attachment" discourse moments that clash against Lucas' definitions, etc.), overall it was a book I loved. It was laugh out loud funny at several moments, it showed the Jedi as deeply caring, it gave time and page space to Jedi who don't usually get much focus, it had some knockout administrative worldbuilding details, and a genuinely fun experience of a story.
There are more that I personally loved (Force Collector was really good for me but not an easy one to recommend, The Legends of Luke Skywalker was very dear to me for being so in love with the galaxy far, far away, Obi-Wan & Anakin: Choose Your Destiny is a Choose Your Adventure style book that's not going to be for everyone but I adored and got so much out of, that's where Theater Nerd Mace Windu came from, the first and third From a Certain Point of View anthologies had 3-4 incredible stories in them each, the ESB one didn't impress me, etc.) and a lot of comics that I think are just as good to read if you haven't started on those, but I think this is a good starting place for prequels nerds.
(I stuck mostly to Disney continuity, it's what I'm more familiar with, and the only Legends books I fully recommend are Revenge of the Sith novelization and Dark Rendezvous, not even my beloved Wild Space comes without a bunch of caveats, but if you're interested in Legends, let me know!)
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Anime Sakura vs Manga Sakura
I first got into Naruto the way a lot of English-language fans very clearly did: by virtue of the anime starting to run in my region. More specifically, I got into it partway through the first Toonami airing of the Wave Country Arc -which, for those who don't know (or don't remember), lead to the anime looping back to the beginning as soon as that arc concluded while localization worked on getting the following episodes localized.
I was sufficiently hooked that this wasn't really enough for me, particularly once the anime got back to the episodes I'd already seen, so I checked out fanfic, became aware the series' original form was a manga, and started reading that. This confluence of events resulted in me becoming aware of something I suspect a lot of fans never notice:
That the anime actually changes a lot of early scenes.
Some of this is actually quite appreciated. For example, in the manga Naruto's classmates don't exist in the first chapter: Sakura and Sasuke don't exist until it's time for team assignments in the second chapter, and the rest of Naruto's classmates don't exist until they show up in the Chunin Exams -this is why Naruto breaks the fourth wall and gives an intro for each of them when they show up there, even in the anime where we actually saw them all in the very first episode. The anime adding them in to the beginning is nice!
By a similar token, the manga actually skips the fight between Tenten and Temari, so jarringly I actually had to double-check and make sure I wasn't missing a chapter somehow; the anime giving us the actual fight in detail is also appreciated!
Other changes are sort of random-feeling if you're not familiar with the tendency for anime adaptations to overtake the manga they're rendering in animated form, but understandable if you are familiar with this point: for example, there's an entire episode dedicated to Naruto having a Wacky Adventure in trying to get to the Chunin Exams' final stage on time, involving silliness like running from an entire stampede, which... has no relevancy to the larger plot because it's an anime-only filler episode to stall for time, not based on anything from the manga.
And then there's how Sakura gets changed.
This is kind of weird to describe, because the anime doesn't cut anything or completely rewrite any scenes: it only ever adds bits. The problem is, the bits that are added are... problematic. Consistently, up until about her Chunin Exam fight scenes. But since it is only addition, I'm going to start from just describing Manga Sakura, then explain the changes.
In the manga, Sakura starts essentially exactly as she does in the anime; she doesn't like Naruto, she's pursuing Sasuke... the only 'difference' is that of course Ino doesn't exist until the Chunin Exams and so the whole Ino/Sakura rivalry thing doesn't come up.
However, in short order Sakura starts changing her mind about Naruto; she attempts to confess to Sasuke, it doesn't work out, and she finds the rejection a fairly unpleasant experience and then connects this pretty immediately to her own rather harsh rejections of Naruto's requests for dates and resolves to not be such a jerk to him in future.
And she does in fact stick to that for... at least everything I read. (I've yet to get fully through the Shinobi World War Arc, so I suppose it's possible she goes back on her word somewhere past there)
This is how Manga Sakura goes overall; she starts as a bit of a shallow, thoughtlessly cruel person who isn't really taking this whole 'life and death battles as a ninja' thing adequately seriously, but tends to be quick to engage in introspection, resolve to change such behaviors, and then stick out this resolution; the Sakura we see in the Chunin Exams is something of a culmination of how Sakura has been progressing this whole time.
Anime Sakura still has these moments, but... they get undercut. The date thing is the bit I still vividly remember: Anime Sakura makes her resolution to not be so cruel to Naruto-
-and Naruto immediately shows up, asks for a date, and Sakura punches him out and goes 'never mind' about her resolution.
There's a lot of moments like this with Anime Sakura: 15-45 seconds of content added to otherwise-faithful-to-the-manga scenes where said added content is 'comedy' moments that horribly undercut Sakura's character development. Taken seriously, they make her into an incredibly unpleasant person who intentionally rejects opportunities to become less unpleasant; it's little wonder that so many of the fanfics I saw in the early days really did not like Sakura.
Once the Chunin Exam starts these added bits of unpleasantness stop occurring, but after so long seeing Anime Sakura do things like make resolutions and immediately break them, I imagine lots of viewers found Sakura's Big Resolutions and Major Character Development difficult to take as intended; if I'd not read the manga, I know I would've been expecting these moments to not really stick.
The whole thing is particularly frustrating for how easy it is to overlook; if I'd not been experiencing the manga and anime near-simultaneously, I never would have realized these quick bits of character assassination were anime-only additions. And if you go look at a wiki or the like, you're not going to trivially learn this info, unlike how basically everyone knows that the Anime Filler Arcs are, in fact, the Anime Filler Arcs.
So I've long suspected lots of people are unaware that Sakura comes across very differently in the early anime vs the early manga.
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Tossing Yubel at you like they're a football for the Yugioh character ask meme C:<
Why I like them
I procrastinated this for days because I knew it was going to be long. Well, here we go.
So my favorite thing about Yubel is how unique they are? Literally any series that wasn't Yu-Gi-Oh would have just killed Yubel as another bad victim. Welp, it's too late to save them. If only we got to them earlier. Now I'm going to kill them while shedding a single tear of regret and then I'll go back to my happy life with all my friends.
I literally wrote an entire meta about this topic.
But no, Judai literally cannot progress as a character unless he saves Yubel. To begin with Judai is Yubel. They reflect each other in the worst way possible. Take Judai's friends away and he turns into the supreme king, so Judai has no moral highground to condemn Yubel for becoming what they became after they were forced to endure torture all alone in space for years.
Yubel isn't really written like an antagonist. I mean, they're literally Judai's spirit partner. Even if when they show up in the anime, they are a spirit partner who has been abandoned and now acts like a jilted lover.
Just the way they interact with the story too. A lot of mastermind characters rely on plot convenience, or they are plot devices to set the story into motions. Yubel is at all times a fully three dimmensional character.
Yubel's not a master manipulator controlling everything behind the scenes like an unseen puppeteer, but they are manipulative. We see them prey on several character's weaknesses several times with characters like Cobra and Amon. They're just good at reading people and take full advantage of that ability. This is also like, not something we're told, but shown. We see Yubel pick apart Amon entirely in the two times they duel.
Things go according to plan because Yubel is smart and adaptable, not because the plot needs these things to happen. Yubel doesn't always succeed either. They get defeated by Johan at first, and they need to retreat, and recoup their losses. At which point Yubel switches to plan B. They're not smart because they always succeed or saw everything coming to begin with, but because they have multiple contingencies to their plan. They knew they might be weakened by having to duel so many times in a row, so they set up Amon to succumb to the darkness in his heart so they can feed on said darkness later.
Yubel certainly does put Judai into situations, but in the end Judai's bad choices are all his own. Yubel just, knows Judai really well, better than anyone else in this whole world and they take full advantage of that fact. Yubel is fully aware of the flaws that Judai is blind too (because Yubel loves them wholeheartedly in spite of those flaws).
Yubel also just demonstrates like, a protagonist level of determination. You just cannot beat Yubel down. They burn up in space and then manage to survive even as a literal hand crawling on the ground. They get their body destroyed again and just take Johan's body. Their entire deck is built around the fact that you can't deal damage to their monsters. If you try you take damage instead. if you destroy their monsters, another, more powerful form comes out.
Which is just a metaphor for the fact that Judai cannot solve this situation by killing the victim. Yubel won't conveniently go away, because they are the symbol of Judai's flaws, and you don't make your flaws go away by ignoring them. In fact, Judai ignoring Yubel and failing to take responsibility makes HIM LOOK BAD because he's failing to be a hero or a good friend.
Everything in the whole series is set up that Judai is supposed to save Yubel. His deck is literally themed after heroes. Judai has the power of the gentle darkness, his whole theme is "Darkness can be used as a force for good, while light is corruption" flipping traditional light and dark themes on their head, and Yubel is like, also darkness.
Judai gives a speech to Cyrus on how even if his friend made all the wrong choices, he would stay by them until the end. When Judai becomes the supreme king, he's saved by O'Brien and Jim not because they wanted to be heroes but because they wanted to help their friend. Even Sho ends up watching Judai to the end because he remembers his advice.
The climax to the second season of the show was Edo despreately dueling to save his friend who was also completely corrupted by the light, and then begging judai to do so in his place when he failed. Edo and Saiou even temporarily combine into the same person when Saiou's good half helps Edo duel the light possessed Saiou.
It's just like wow look at hos with antagonist is weaved into every aspect of the story, and even goes back and makes the first two seasons seem like they were building up to this. Way to make everything that happens in season 3 one long journey to the moment where Judai will save Yubel.
The utlimate bad victim and as I said this is the Bad Victim Supporters blog.
I think also the way that Yubel is never painted as "Too far gone" and the way they are also right in several ways. Like Yubel's view of love is twisted but they also kind of show a deep understanding of it. You do in fact hurt the people you love from time to time. Yubel's love is actually just a twisted definition of empathy. They believe that the definition of love is suffering the same exact pain, and that's what empathy is, understanding someone else's suffering even though you're not them.
Yubel seems off their rocker, but like they are more mature in their understanding of love than Judai who's never had a healthy friendship until Johan came along and even then became too fixated on him.
Also just, the fusion scene at the end is the most beautiful act of true love I've ever seen in fiction. People can call it codependent and messy all they want but like... this is fiction. The whole point of Yubel is that they are a bad victim, but at the end of their story, Judai and Yubel are two bad victims who can go on a journey of self improvement together after they've been saved at their lowest points.
Yubel is to Judai a reflection of all of his worst qualities and everything he hates about himself, which is why Judai rejects them for so long but even though Yubel is so flawed they love Judai for all of his flaws and they accept all of him. You can be loved at your absolute worst and I think that's just. So gay.
What I like about their appearance
Yubel is a rebis which is a half man half woman alchemy symbol, and that's what I like the most about their appearance the symbolism associated with it. Literally the people who wrote GX did their research on alchemy and they wove it into almost every aspect of the story.
Also, Yubel looks like a devilman character, specifically Ryo Asuka which is really fucking cool.
Do I prefer their dub names or original names?
Same name. Though, I hate the dub version of Yubel. Completley different character.
OTP
Soulshipping.
NOTP
Don't have one.
OT3
This is probably an unpopular opinion but I don't actually ship any of the OT3s that are like, Judai / Yubel / Someone else. I don't Notp them or anything, I just like Judai and Yubel being the embodiment of "Hand in unlovable hand."
Favourite card they use
Yubel.
Their entire deck is symbolic of the fact that you can't put them down with physical violence, you can't make them go away, you have to accept them.
However, I also like the fact that Yubel runs like 3 diffeerent decks. Advanced Crstyal Beasts, Sacred Beasts, and Yubel. How often do we see Yu-Gi-Oh characters actually run different archetypes?
Favourite moment they were in
This entirescene and the super polymerization right after. it's probably my favorite scene in all of fiction tied with Spike hugging the cross in Buffy, I love it in in so many ways.
The way that Judai had been resolved to just kill Yubel to save the world before this. The way that this scene demonstrates what I've been saying above all along that while Yubel's love was twisted, it's genuine, and it's what humanizes them. The way that Yubel represents the best and worst aspects of love. The way that Judai like, instantly changes his mind after seeing this scene and decides to keep the promise he made in his past life.
I have various opinions on why he did that, but I think in the end he realized that Yubel's love was indeed genuine and unconditional. That love humanized Yubel in Judai's eyes finally, because love is what makes us all human.
Judai is also like giving Yubel what they wanted all along, which is a relationship between equals. Yubel gave up his personhood in order to protect Judai, and now Judai gives up part of his personhood in order to fuse with Yubel and spend the rest of his life watching over them just like he promised. Sometimes fairy tale endings and gestures of true love conquering all are good things, actually.
Least favourite moment
That Yubel is only in four episodes of Season four. We should have gotten so much of Yubel and Judai acting like partners and talking to each other the same way that Yugi and Yami do, but that's what fanfiction is for I guess.
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marry me, idiot. chapter two
SURPRISE UPDATE!! I wasn't planning on posting chapter two yet but I'm just so excited that you guys are enjoying this piece so much!! I'm honestly having so much fun writing it!! chapter two is 3.5K words! lmk what y'all think!! xx mwah
series masterlist
"what's your ring size"
The text from Erin, the executive assistant, lit up your screen just past midnight.
You quickly responded, noting that it may have been a bit urgent if she texted you about it. You made sure to question her, your curiosity got the best of you.
"I have to buy you a ring before tomorrow Imfao, need a ring for the shoot"
The what? Spencer had failed to mention exactly what changed in his schedule, prompting you to quickly check your own.
"Spencer," You chastised him as you shut off the television, the episode of Friends almost over, causing a groan in frustration from him. "You didn't tell me we have a fucking shoot tomorrow!"
You huffed, your brows furrowed. Spencer couldn't hide the turn of his lips, his smile cracking through.
"Calm down, honey, it'll be fine." He put emphasis on the pet name, his voice just a bit lower than normal. Your eyes widened, surprised at every part of it, even more so as he placed a hand on your bare thigh.
"You okay?" He quipped, reaching across your lap for the remote, turning the show back on. Spencer gave your thigh a soft squeeze, enjoying this intimacy with you and the confusion that was written on your face.
"Did you lose your mind, Spence?" You felt like omething was short circuiting or misfiring in your mind because this isn't your Spencer. Your Spencer is nervous, fumbles with his words, making the most out of pocket comments in any situation, he doesn't do wel| with physical affection.
This Spencer was touching you, on purpose. He seemed so calm, do relaxed that it was managing to put you on edge.
"What? What're you talking about, dude?" Spence furrowed his brow, shaking his head lightly. "You're gonna be my wife in like a year, we can't start fighting the day we get engaged, it's a terrible look."
"The shoot tomorrow is gonna be chill, I was texting lan about it. Everyone at work is gonna know that it's fake so we'll be okay. He said that we're gonna stick to poses he seemed 'subtly romantic, whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean." Spencer was nonchalant, waving his hands around a bit as he spoke.
You nodded slowly, brows furrowed.
"Okay, yeah, that's fine. But what does that mean? Are they gonna make us be all cute and cuddly?" You sighed, nerves evident.
"Aren't we already?"
You would find out the following morning after the two of you arrived early to the building, clocks just shy of 7AM.
You rubbed your eyes, yawning as you entered wardrobe together, quickly being pulled in opposite directions to get ready. Spencer found his mind wandering to you as he went through the motions, curious about how it looked for you, what your time was entailing. You two finally met again at the front of the office, where you're greeted with a small group. Kiana, Spencer, and Brennan chatting as they awaited you.
You couldn't help but take in the simple outfit Spencer wore, it suited him well. He had a short sleeve, olive green button-up on, paired with dark khakis. It fit him so well that you knew Ki had picked it.
Spencer was glad to be ushered out of the building, finding himself speechless as soon as his eyes landed on you. You had on a tea length, light green dress. It had soft layers, accenting everything about you so beautifully; swaying with you as you walk.
Kianna had been saving the dress to gift to you, but as soon as she read the email, disregarding whether or not it was a joke, her heart called for it. She had the vision in her mind in an instant.
She's always known about the feelings you and Spencer had for each other, but couldn't bring herself to spill your guys' secrets. So she adapted early on, deciding to constantly poke at the two of you, dubbing you two work spouses.
Somewhere in the years since it started, as your feelings grew for each other, and Kiana heard everything from both of you, all she wanted was for the two of you to get together. She was so beyond excited with the stupid situation you'd put yourselves in.
Brennan drove the three of you out, both Spencer and you surprised to find that this was going to be a location shoot.
Kiana explained the ideas to you, talking about the field she had found that she thought was adorable. She went over some of the photo ideas, showing the two of you some references. She grinned as she spoke, evidently excited.
"Kiana, please take a deep breath, you're making me anxious." You laughed a bit, brows furrowed as she rolled her eyes. "I'm just excited, it's gonna be so cute and I'm excited to see y'all all cuddled up together."
She cackled a bit, turning around to grin at the two of you as Brennan tried to stifle his laughter.
With all the effort Kiana had already put into this, you could only imagine the delight she's taking in this.
Once you arrived, you stretched, yawning as Spencer approached you, tangling his fingers with yours, giving your hand a gentle squeeze. You smiled brightly up at him, turning after a camera shutter sounds off. You find Kiana behind the lens.
On instinct you raise your free middle finger at her, used to this treatment already. Spencer copied you, his mind on the exact same page as yours.
Another shutter as Brennan and her laugh, Kiana giving a thumbs up as you and a Spencer hold in laughter.
"You guys nailed it, that's the perfect vibe for the shoot. Go get lost in the field while we set shit up." She waves you off, popping the trunk of Brennan's car.
Spencer hums the theme for Animal Crossing as you wander, laughing softly.
"This is chill, right? Like, Ki didn't pick out terrible stuff for us to do like, pose wise." Spencer shrugged as the two of you came to a stop. You stood, squinting as you faced him, the sun shining brightly now.
"I'm cool with everything, but can we agree to say something if we're not cool with it?" You held up your hand, your pinky finger extended to him.
Spencer scoffed, linking his finger with yours and shaking.
"Hell yeah, dude," He laughed as he kept shaking your intertwined hands. "Consent is key."
You doubled over in laughter, clutching your stomach as you shook your head. Spence rested his hand on your shoulder after a few moments, trying to calm you down.
"You really are The Chosen, Shayne was so spot on." Spencer rolled his eyes, pulling you into a hug. You rested your head on his chest, your arms wrapped around his waist.
You smiled as you finally caught sight of Kiana and Brennan positioned in front of you two. They were far enough away to be out of earshot, done purposefully by Kiana's call, but close enough for Brennan to work his magic.
Everyone of you had a very busy day ahead, so this would be a quiet time for each of you to enjoy.
You lifted your head, pulling Spencer's attention as he followed your gaze, laughing softly.
"You think they've been there a while, babe?" He asked, his tone shifting in the same way it did yesterday. He pressed a kiss to your forehead, squeezing you softly as you smiled at the camera.
You shifted a bit, chewing your lip as you tried to pretend that his tone and names didn't have an effect on you.
"They definitely have, I think Ki's gonna cry soon." You stated, turning to smile at Spencer, your heart melting as your eyes met. You played the moment up as he chuckled, knowing you were right, you cupped his cheek softly. Spencer followed your lead, resting one hand on your waist as his other rested atop your hand on his face.
"Oh shit," Spencer jumped a bit, Kiana's gasp heard as loud as could be as you two separate. He dug in his pocket for a second before grinning. "You need this."
He held his hand out, presenting your ring to you. It had completely slipped your mind, the conversation with Erin felt like it happened days ago.
It was a simple ring, but it was perfect. The silver band held a single faux diamond.
"Erin said it's stainless steel and cubic zirconia, you can wear it as much or as little as you want to, I think." Spencer spoke as you laughed, holding up your right hand, giving him the chance to slip on the ring for the first time.
The both of you could feel an intimacy in this moment, a shift in the air.
"Wrong hand!! Wrong hand, no!" Screams pulled your attention from the moment as Ki and Brennan frantically yell at you two, waving their hands around wildly. You two laugh as you lift up your left hand now. The tension you both felt in the moment had dissipated quickly, Spencer making no show of putting it on now.
You fiddle with it for a second before flicking your ring finger to the pair that had interrupted your bubble. Spencer laughs as the camera shutters again.
You liked to imagine that everytime your heart fluttered was when Brennan shot, because you hadn't noticed the sound again until now, so lost in your time with your best friend. He breaks you from your thoughts as Spencer grabs your waist, bracing your back with his other arm as he spins you away from the camera. He dips you as your mixed laughters fill the air around you once again.
The two of you spend a bit longer together, Kiana yelling instructions for how to pose before calling you in closer. The closer shots were very full of natural smiles and laughter, as your small group continued to crack each other up.
You soon wrapped, finally checking your phone, finding it just past ten in the morning. Your stomach growled as you all piled into the car again, agreeing to hit a drive thru.
"I'm honestly really upset with the two of you." Brennan spoke solemnly as Spencer and you slummed into the backseat, out of his eyesight in the rearview.
"I'm gonna be editing all day because there were too many good shots. I'm gonna have to stare at you two all day long."
You arrived back to the office, Erin's schedule, the one she rushed to add to your calendars this morning as you both changed, directed you towards the Pit stage.
Kiana was quick to push you two back to wardrobe, claiming that you couldn't wear your same outfits, it would out everything.
You slipped your jeans back on, and opted for a black pizza place shirt you kept at your desk. You greeted Spencer back at the stage, finding him in the same pants, now with his navy blue shirt from this morning.
Two identical yellow stools sat centerstage, a table placed in front of it. The lighting seemed more dim than usual, and maybe a more warm toned, too.
Eventually the pair of you were situated at the table, being told over and over again to scoot closer as they check the framing for the cameras.
"Okay!" Kiana clapped loudly as Spencer adjusted himself on the stool, looking to you with furrowed brows. You two were used to being close and touching, but it felt weird on camera.
You both decided to keep the physical affection to a bare minimum on screen, not wanting the internet to run too far with their ideas. It didn't mean the two of you were great at remembering that, but for the most part, this was the closest you two had been durning filming.
The weight setting in as you realize this would also be the first video with just you two, and it was a big joke.
You giggled a bit, earning a glare from Ki that silences you quickly.
"We're gonna do our announcement video. wanted to wait until you guys were more comfortable with faking a relationship, but we need this in case it leaks or anyone posts anything about it." She grinned, nodding. The both of you nodded along, Spencer rubbing his palms on his pants nervously.
He felt like he wanted to scream at the top of his lungs until his voice gave out. There wasn't a project Smosh had presented to a Spence that scared him, but he was a bundle of nervousness and terror right now. He was so scared by how natural all of this came to the both of you, granted, it had only been the one photoshoot. Still, the ring on your finger that you continued to fidget with weighed so heavily on his heart; he wanted so badly for it to be real.
"Spence? You good?" You ask, smiling softly as you glance at him, taking his right hand in your left, squeezing it gently. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath as he felt the cold metal of the ring press into his skin.
"Yeah, let's do this shit." He nodded, squinting his eyes as he smouldered at the camera, causing you to chuckle.
"Okay, let's do an intro, just introduce yourself and your roles, then you guys can take any explaining you'd like to do from there." Kiana grinned, giving you guys two thumbs up as she stood offstage.
You tooka deep breath, giving Spencera small hug before settling back in place, smiling brightly.
"Hey guys," You grin, waving at the camera.
"The editors are taking over the channel, Shayne and Courtney are no more." Spencer grinned, laughing softly. You rolled your eyes at him as Shayne's laugh is heard off camera.
"If you don't know who we are by now, this is Spencer." you gesture to the man beside you as he waves at the camera. "He's an editor here, and my best friend."
"Thank you, thank you. My college here with me today is Y/N." He began, grinning softly as he watched you pose, resting your head on your hands. "She's also an editor here, she's my best friend, and she's my fiance.'
He swiveled back to the camera, grinning brightly as you squealed, holding your left hand out proudly to the fans. A bright blush was apparent across your cheeks and Spencer's.
"So yeah, that's what this whole video is about today, which is probably a big shock to you guys, so we'd like to explain a little bit." You smiled brightly, grabbing Spencer's hand from his thigh to intertwine your fingers.
"Ki, how long have we been together? Cut this part, also, just, yanno.." Spencer trailed, waving his other hand around as he squinted, looking for Kiana.
"I'd say no less than two or three years." She shrugged, a few people mumbling in agreement.
"Four?" You shrugged, as Spencer mirrored your movement squeezing your hand.
"Cool, all good now, carry on." He laughed, as you shook your head, smiling at him as he began to get back on track.
"We've actually been dating for a little over four years now" He chuckled, chewing his lip glanced over at you. "We kinda just kept it to ourselves for a while, unintentionally. Like, we already posted about each other and cuddled and did super couple-ly shit, so the title change wasn't a big deal."
You couldn't stop yourself from staring at Spencer as he spoke, sounding so sincere and genuine that it tugged at your heart strings.
"We did also talk about keeping it from you guys, which wasn't easy, but we liked having the privacy of our relationship; it was fun to think that no one but us knew about us." You turned a bit, bumping your knees with his as Spencer stared down at his lap, grinning. This felt unreal. He couldn't believe this was something you two were in for together.
"We didn't intentionally keep it from everyone at Smosh, though!" You were quick to defend yourselves, eyes wide.
"That was an accident, but they found out when we moved in together, like, two years ago, so it's all cool now!" You grinned, winking at you gave the camera a thumbs up, Spence unable to contain his laughter beside you.
"It was just because we weren't quite prepared for how everyone on the internet would react, more so me than Spencer." You chuckled as he raised his brows, shrugging.
"Now I'm excited as fuck!" You grinned, bouncing in your seat a bit as Spencer laughed again.
He huffed, rolling his eyes as he pouted.
"C'mon, we're gonna have to edit that." He spoke low, causing you to fall into a fit of laughter, which spurred Spencer into a fit of his own. You two continued laughing for a bit, wiping tears when you calmed down, mindlessly creating more work for yourselves, again.
"We figured since we were gonna tell you guys about it, or since the internet figures everything out, why not make it more interesting? Plenty of people around Smosh have gotten married, sure." He scoffed, waving his hand as he spoke, feigning seriousness. You couldn't contain your giggles as Spencer spoke, nodding along with everything he said.
"Not once in those weddings were both of the parties Smosh employees, let alone two that were shipped online already!" He exclaimed, wrapping his arm around your shoulders, tugging you into his side for a warm hug.
You wrapped your arms around his waist as you grinned at the camera, resting your head on his shoulder.
"What all of that means is that this wedding is a pretty big deal for everyone here at Smosh. Especially with so many of our close friends being our coworkers." You spoke, gesturing to the people behind the cameras. A small cheer rang out from a few people in the crew, causing the both of you to smile.
"Soon, we will be uploading wedding themed Smosh videos!" You squealed, jumping a bit as you squeezed Spencer before you sat back onto your stool.
"We're not gonna do like, wedding videos, but themed ones, kinda like how the Smosh Games series worked. That means you're gonna get to see our usual content, just with a wedding twist. We have a Wedding Party Try Not to Laugh planned, right, Ki?" Spencer grinned, feeling the excitement bubbling in his chest the more he spoke.
Kiana called out an excited 'yes', her thumbs up again as some cheers erupted from the crew. Spoiling an upcoming video was not a concern for her at the moment as she watched her two best friends fall more in love with each other.
Ki was thankful that the lights were still bright enough to keep her from your sights as she stood, teary-eyed, her hands clutched at her chest.
"I think we have some video games, maybe a couple of our other original series too!" You grinned, nodding as you looked to Spencer, finding him already looking at you.
You two were pulled away as Kiana called for an outro. You were quick to start the end card part, glad to have an excuse to stop yourself from staring into Spencer's blue eyes.
The two of you quickly took off your mics before heading in opposite directions for lunch. You brought up the idea this morning on your way in together.
You were worried that Spencer would get tired of seeing you so much, especially with everything happening this quickly.
He was quick to insist that your assumption was false, claiming he'd spend forever with you, winking. Spencer was allowed to make these jokes now, you two were literally, well, more technically engaged. Still counts.
It was almost ironic when you enter your office to find Spencer eating at his desk.
You had initially headed in the opposite direction to find Patrick, needing to talk to him about a scene in a new skit.
You couldn't seem to figure out how exactly he wanted to timeline to run in the video, so it was fairly important.
After no luck with your search for the writer, you headed back towards your office, settling on ordering delivery.
You sat in your chair beside him, laughing softly.
"I thought you didn't wanna spend time with me on your lunch break." He chuckled as he wiped his mouth, setting down a container in front of you.
Spencer knew you well enough to order your food for you, expecting to find you seated beside him eventually. You like to make lunch plans with others early, you didn't often eat by yourself. You'd turn up at your desk after not making plans. He cared about you so much, fuck.
You couldn't help the blush the appeared on your cheeks every single time that Spencer did this, no matter how often it was.
He'd come in after you most mornings, greeting you with a kiss on the forehead as he places a coffee on your desk before sitting at his own. He'd check the time before you did, mindlessly ordering lunch for the two of you as you got lost in your work. You had a habit of accidentally working your way through your break, unless Spencer set a box in front of you, unaccepting of any money you tried to give him.
It was the little things that made you fall in love with you best friend. Love wasn't a word you used to describe your feelings to Kiana, scared you'd have to watch her explode, but you knew you were in love with Spencer.
You love him, romantically, and he loves you, platonically. That's fine.
"Spencer, I love spending time with you," You huffed, pouting softly as you popped open the box, finding your go-to order inside.
You hold your left hand up between the two of you. "I'm literally, technically about to spend forever with you, dude."
He laughed, flicking you off as he placed his headphones on, choosing to squeeze in some editing on his lunch break in-between your shoots.
In reality, Spencer didn't think he could spend his break talking to you like everything was normal. He still wanted to scream, maybe until he passed out now.
You scrolled on your phone, occasionally nudging the man beside you to show him something, Spencer huffing a breath of air out of his nose each time.
When you stood, Spencer was quick to pull off his headphones, rubbing his eyes a bit.
"Call time, big boy." You chuckled, reaching your hand down to rub his shoulder softly before you made your way towards the Pit set, again.
Spencer followed behind you, brows furrowed when his eyes landed on a certain someone standing on the stage. He subconsciously knew you had stopped to stare in confusion too.
#ahhhHHHHHHHHH#oh my god I love this fic#tell me who yiu guys think it is please omg thatd be so fun#please do it yall#im begging ngl#smosh#mine#smosh au#spencer agnew imagine#spencer agnew x reader#spencer#spencer agnew smut#spencer agnew#mmi#mmi tag#kiana parker
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Nightshift pt. 1
Having them as roommates was a problem
Tags: mdni, college au, f!reader , explicit language, a little bit of misunderstandings here and there for the plot, everyone is pretty dumb, inexperienced!reader, size difference, they toy with you the way they want, fingering, thigh fucking, both Geto and Gojo are playboys (cuz I want so) , idk I'll add it later if I missed something
Author's note: bro, I started writing this thinking it would be a small ff. I was giggling and kicking my feet and then I woke up 10k words in and I was like, nahh, gotta make this into a series. So enjoy reading this just as much as I enjoyed writing it😘
Update: I re wrote this a little, just made some small changes here and there.
6k words(I thought there were more)
Masterlist part 2
Gojo Satoru had all kind of connections. He basically knew everyone in the campus at this point, the campus you shared and many others. And who could blame him? People liked him. It wouldn't be surprising if someone goes at him for anything. That's how he wakes up in someone else business most of the time, it all starts with a small favor, and then he finds out its not that small as he thought it would be. And yet he still does it again and again. He's an idiot, isn't he?
Who could blame him. No one was in their right minds anymore these days. But an idiot will always remain an idiot. And so, he woke up helping someone again. A friend you happen to have in common came to him, asking if he knows any place available to stay at. And the idiot went around asking about it, only to find up things about you. Like what kind of person you are, how people viewed you, how you got in the situation of moving out. You were a quiet person, or that's what some people said. Other said how it was so fun to have you around. You were non problematic, or hat's how he liked to see it. You were a peaceful person who just happened to be in an unfortunate situation.
He would usually say no, but he met you in person. You looked tired, and small compared to him, you looked like you bearly got any sleep these days. He lives in a big house, doesn't he? It's not like he needs new people in there, the quietness was enough for him. He also clearly don't need any money from you especially. If you can't afford sleep, would you be able to afford a place to stay in?
And somehow you woke up moving into his house. After a lot of talking about it with him, just making sure you heard what you heard right you finally made a decision. Sure, he doesn't seems bad, so why not accepting.
Everything was so peaceful at first. He said he won't be there most of the times. Him and the unexpected housemate you found there were out almost all day. And when they were back everyone seems to be so careful around each other. No one makes fast moves and it seems that you adapted to that life there rather quick. Everything was like a dream, or that what it seemed like. Until you heard a rather nasty rumor about your so called housemates. Animals in heat, that's how you can call them without saying a bad word.
You can't see it. You just can't see it. Your roommates were two regular guys. Sure, one was ridiculously rich, but he was fine. Maybe a little childish. And the other guy was just so down on earth. That guy was softer than your damn pillow. The way he talks was definitely telling you that the rumors are fake. Defamation. This got to be defamation. I mean, no matter how much you think about it you can't see these guys as some fuckers who are.. Well.. Doing what the name says. Fucks.
But you couldn't help but listen to those false allegations. The nights they weren't home they were supposed to be partying somewhere until they leave with a girl. You never saw anyone bringing anything home. So where were they? Do they like spending times in hotels instead of their own house? And that's when you find out they almost never brings girls home because they go to ladies houses.
Everything you heard was true. It's an unwritten rule that they don't like to see strangers on their beds. So that means they spend the night there? No, they always come back no matter what. Fooling in someone else bed was alright, but staying the night was a no no. All those rumors made you think. What was so special about them? And so, you started to observe them whenever you could. It was like an small experiment in your head, it meant literally nothing more. It made you think about the situation. Were they really not as you see it?
Without even realizing you got out the room at the same time they were at home. When they were in the kitchen, you happen to be there, nothing happened that just a few words exchanged , small talk. However, it was bothering them.
They really don't understand why you're looking like that at them. No, they're actually full aware of the look in your eyes. It's was something they saw so many times, yet it was more. It wasn't just horniness, it wasn't that lust they're so familiar with. It was curiosity. You don't even have to say a word because it was clearly written on your face. Yet they don't want to admit that it was just something innocent. Both of them agreed mentally that you want them. It wasn't sure which one but it was clearly you wanted something from one of them. They were the horny ones. Your eyes studying them so openly, no thoughts behind it, no shame. They were indeed animals in heat, because they just couldn't keep it to themselves. And just like always, they were willing to give you whatever you want. That if you finally say something, do a move yourself. Not just looking and that's it.
"Y/N." you moved your eyes on who ever was calling your name, none other than your landlord. "Did something happened?" to him it seemed like you had something to say but you were to shy to say it. He was more than happy to give you a little push, help you to finally say something.
"Mno..?" he gulped, you looked right into his eyes. The looks you kept giving earlier wasn't helping either. He only heard stuff about how you were shy and you didn't go much out. Your friends don't even remember the last time you went on a date, that if you ever went on a date. "Ohh." you're reaction made both of them move their eyes straight on you. You finally was going to say it? "I apologize." you laughed. "I heard something and I wanted to see it myself." you had a sweet smile on you face, it really didn't look like you were undressing them in your mind. You were curious. And if you have the answers right in front of you, wouldn't you want to know what is actually happening?
"Rumors?" the dark haired guy sat down at the table you were sitting with a cup of coffee in his hand.
"Mhhmm." you nodded.
"Are you that interested in what other people say?" you shook your head.
"Not at all." you got up from your chair. "Sorry for making you concerned." and so, you went to your room. You can't figure out what's in their head, and they can't figure what's in yours. There were a lot of rumors about them, most of them being true, but you could never know. You haven't heard anything about your name yet, so maybe people don't even know you live there to begin with. Which is good. The last thing you want is someone disturbing your peace.
What you should have put in calculation was the two demons outside your door. Gojo only let you stay because he was interested in you, the other guy just started to feel a little curious. When they tried to show that they know you're watching, you did nothing more than continue to watch them further. You would look them right in the eyes like you did nothing shameless. And the answer you gave them was so vague that they're now asking for more. It's not like they disliked you there next to them, just looking at them and doing nothing more. It's that it made their imagination go wild.
You bearly went out if it wasn't for school. And up until not so long ago you wouldn't even get out the room when they were home. It was so quiet in there that they forgot about you. That until you got in that kitchen, you're steps were so carefully placed on the floor, the way you would walk around the table and sit at a spot they would have never guessed it was yours in the first place. It became like a routine to see you there in the morning, since that was the time of the day where they would be at home. Oh, but now you stopped. When they're awake you're sleeping safe and sound. Maybe they should have let you do your thing. Of course they would have answered whatever question you might had, but what they don't know is the thoughts you were thinking of. The way you would just smile like you didn't thought about what the hell they were doing when they were out.
You were just curious. And you're happy they finally said something, so that way you could stop looking for whatever you were looking. They're not happy tho. It's been a week since they didn't seen you even breathing around them. Everyone was tired. That's why they started coming home earlier. Which turned into an unfortunate event.
Stressed, everyone was stressed. And you became even stressed when you woke up in the middle of the night hearing noises. Was someone in pain? Did someone needed help? Then you woke up and realizing what is actually happening. The sounds you heard weren't from pain, they were moans, and bed moving. They weren't your moans, they didn't sounded like male moans. It was definitely a woman. You sighed as you went back to sleep, ready to complain about it tomorrow to your housemates.
You were so eager to complain about what happened. The moment you got in the kitchen you sat down next to the dark haired guy. "Suguru, have you heard that last night?" you sighed, yet you were thrilled to continue complaining. "Honestly, can't the neighbors chill?" you wanted to hear him agreeing with you, yet he didn't.
"It wasn't the neighbors." huh? Now you were confused.
"What do you mean?" you both looked at the person who just entered the kitchen. You looked at the guy next to you with big eyes when you realized what actually happened, you stood there bamboozled. He only nodded, like he could read you mind. He knew exactly what you were thinking of. "No way.." a hand was placed over your mouth to show how shocked you were. "I'm sorry! I didn't know!" you exclaimed as you ran from there to your room. So those rumors were true? But you could have never guessed. I mean, weren't they in some kind of mafia or something? Why else would they be out all the times if they weren't working? But didn't people said they don't get girls home? Then was that his girlfriend? What about all those shameful things you thought of? You have to apologize to his girl.
The next morning you got out your room and shyly went into the kitchen. Moving carefully and biting your lower lip, you sat down next to your landlord at the big table that was placed in the kitchen. You looked at him, then at your hands while you kept playing with your fingers. The other guy looked amused. He could only guess why you're acting like that, but he probably knows exactly what you wanted to say. The white haired guy keep moving his eyes from his phone to you. Was this a deja vu? Or perhaps not. This feels like it happened before yet so different at the same time. You looked only at him, you sat next to him, and the other guy seems to find it funny. Clearly, something happened that he's not aware of. He's a little angry now. How can he be left out? Especially when you don't even do much besides coming into the kitchen for a few minutes then run away from there. "Something happened?" this was definitely a deja vu. The same thing, same words, yet it felt so different.
"I'm sorry.." so something did happened? What could be so bad that you got to act like this? You weren't in this situation when you got caught for staring at them shamefully.
"Huh?"
"I know it wasn't my business.. I should have probably shut up.. But please listen to me first." the guy that was sitting not so far from you was laughing his ass off. This was pure gold, comedy in its purest form. He couldn't stop you even if he wanted to. After all, you had to find things out yourself, and he didn't plan to give you any information. "I really didn't know. I wouldn't had said anything if I knew she was your girlfriend." now that was a twist that made even the hyena stop laughing. Now everyone was interested in what happened.
"What do you mean by my girlfriend?" your landlord was mad that someone is out there pretending to be his girlfriend. He might change girlfriends frequently, but at the moment he was single. So who would dare to present themselves as his girl?
"I heard that you don't get girls home unless it's someone important." never in their life have they bought someone home since you moved in there.
"I didn't bring anyone in here?" everyone was confused. No one didn't know what to say.
"The other day you came back with someone, right? I just wanted to apologize because I didn't know it was you. I thought it was the neighbors." the dark haired guy started to laugh again, this time not even trying to hide it. You got up from you seat and went to the door as fast as you could. "Anyway, I'm sorry. I just want it to say it in case of anything." and so, you disappeared from their eyes once again. Whatever you heard about them it was clearly bullshit in their eyes. You need to stop listening to whatever people had to say, they could answer to whatever question you had. Yet you never ask for anything.
A game of cats and mouse started. It was clearly who were the evil minds that came with the plan and who was the clueless victim. One day when you were at school, they happen to be there to switch everything in the house. Whatever you thought you knew was, now was in a complete another place. It was pitiful to watch them work so eagerly on this. It was hard to watch them being idiots, yet not even a second they stopped to think about it. All they had to do now was for you to come back.
It took you two days to finally see that something is wrong. In these two days they almost died of impatience because of how slow you were. Yet look at you, refusing to give up. You searched everywhere in the kitchen cabinets for whatever you were looking for, only to see with the corner of your eye that it was placed somewhere were you clearly couldn't reach at. You took a chair and tried to get it yourself. You don't need help from those fuckers after all. Why would you need it when they made your life so complicated.
"Need help?" the knight in shining armor was too late unfortunately, yet that didn't stopped Gojo from doing something.
"Not at all." he came next to you, took whatever was in your hands and put it back up, just to take it and handle it to you.
"Here you go." you sighed. But your misfortune continue to grow when the other idiot came in.
"You're stuck there? Is it too high for you?" the dark haired guy tone was like it was making fun of you. He picked you up and put you down. "There there, no need to thank me." all you did was to sigh.
"I don't need this anymore. Can you put it back?" you handed whatever you had in your hands back to them.
"You got the wrong thing? This happens if you try to reach high places alone." the moment they turned their heads away from you was the way you disappeared from there. Oh, but it was hell the next few days. Nothing was in their right places and it turned you crazy. You gave up. If that's what they wanted to hear then they win. Just like always, you finally showed up in that kitchen. You sat at another chair, choosing a different one from your usual one. Head and hands on the table as you waited for them to appear there. You were about to call it defeat when you fell asleep. It was morning after all, at this time you would usually sleep. Heck, even the bed under you was sleeping. If you were pulling out the white flag, now they were the ones doing it. Seeing you there once again made them realize their mistake.
They apologized ,not to you physically but mentally. You did nothing more than just being curious. Who wouldn't be? Some rich guy let you stay in his house when you needed a place to stay. He didn't ask for anything, the rent was even lowered to half the price it was to the previous place you lived at. And even after all those rumors you heard, you didn't had to see any of their dates inside the house. It was nice living there, they tried to make an effort somehow to not disturb you. And so you did to them. But maybe they didn't thought about it in the end. Sure, it was childish, but wouldn't you do the same if you were in their shoes? Just like you, they have questions. They also want answers. Their methods might be a little out of pocket, but try to think the way they do. They're too proud, you'll never see them asking for anything. They'll make you ask for it and then act nonchalant about it. Can't you see they're just some big fucks? They're fuckers and they're proud. They're literally dickheads.
The strategy changed. They'll get you out that room in other ways. That's when you started to wake up with all kind of food and sweets. They'll get home and the first thing to do is to go to your room to announce what they got. It made you instantly get out the bed and follow them. They played dirty all the time. They did it in such a way that when you hear the front door you instantly get out the bed and sprint to who ever came back. Big smile on your face and knowing absolutely nothing about whatever scheme they might plan next.
"I didn't got anything today." Suguru's words made you lose your smile instantly. "Satoru might come with something tho." and that made your smile to come back.
"Can I stay with you until he comes back?" his smile seems so innocent. It made him look innocent. That old fox isn't playing according to the books. No, in fact he'll get off the main path just to get to what he wants faster. He knew exactly that your so called landlord wouldn't come back home tonight. Yet he's not going to say shit.
"Of course." and so, you ended up with him on the big couch that was in the living room, watching some movie that was playing on some random channel on tv. It would be such a big lie if he says whatever he was after was just friendship. Is he trying hard? Maybe. But he wants to look like you're the one worked up about it. He wants to look like he just happened to be there and that's it. And oh man he got what he want. By the end of that movie you two ended up in your room. His hands moved so fast to get your clothes off the moment that door was closed. The big windows gave so much light that he could see very clearly where your bed was at.
"Suguru.." you whined his name so sweet and softly. It took all the control he haves to not jump on you in that exact moment, not like he wasn't all over you. If he knew that he could have got to this point sooner from a movie and some takeaways he would have got through this a long time ago. You sat at the edge of the bed, looking at him taking his clothes off and then he jumped back on you.
"Have you done this before?" he was placed in between your legs ,one of his hands placed on your thigh as the other was on the bed right next to you keeping him from not putting all his weight on you. You nodded your head slowly.
"But it's been a while so be gentle with me." animal in heat describes him the best. It looked like a big bad wolf was on top of its prey. If you still can walk tomorrow then that means he did a bad job. But your sweet words made him realize that's too soon. How can he get in your bed again if he scares you now?
"Alright." the hand he had on your thigh moved in between your legs. You were so wet after that little make out session you had on the couch. It should be a crime to leave you alone when you clearly need his help. He's only playing the bigger person so he won't fuck everything right now, so let him believe in his delusions.
Two of his fingers were inside you, moving them in and out of you for a few moments just to see how far he can go. And then he started to curl them, making you instantly squirm. Did the other guy you fucked not do a good job? Maybe that's why you had almost non existent experience in this. Maybe you were left disappointed. Well, aren't you lucky? He likes to hear only good reviews about himself. Oh, but he hopes you heard about his services. If you're so interested in what other people says then you should definitely listen to the people that ended in the same bed as him. "I know you like it, but stop moving so much." he stopped his hand movement for a moment to let you breathe. He's lying. He likes the way you're squirming and trembling at everything he does.
"You're so mean." you whined. If that was mean then he doesn't know how to call whatever he's usually doing. He likes it rough. He likes to see tears in the eyes of who ever he's fucking. He likes to relieve his stress in questionable ways.
"Am I?" he had this diabolical smirk on his face. Evil was too little to say. He looked like he let his demons out of leash. His face got closer to yours, whispering sweet nothings in your ear as he started to move his hand again. He'd go as deep as he can, discovering all kind of places, touching you here and there just to see you melt. "Come on, look at me, don't close your eyes." he'll rub your clit for time to time, just to remind you about it. It was mostly to see your expressions, and to remind you how mean he can be. If you said he is then he is, no? This was him just being the fucker he is. Toying with you just to show you how he can make you feel. And to remind you that if he gives, then he also can take away all these new overwhelming feelings. Beg for him. That's what he wants to hear from you after all. Cries and begs.
And you were falling all for it. The way you would cry his name was like good news to his ears, a melody that's he's so happy to hear. His fingers are always making sure to touch all the good places. But at some point it was too much, you felt like you were going over the edge, your vision completely disappearing when you came all over his hand. And he still kept toying with you. "Please-" you gasped. "No more.." you were so dumb for him that he couldn't help but want to over stimulate you, play with you until you're begging for more.
"You can take it, can't you?" it was an obvious no from you. It was the first time you felt this overwhelming, you clearly needed a break to calm down.
"Kiss me." you wanted to feel more than just his evil scheme. A kiss would go so good after that torture. But he stopped the moment you said those words. He just wanted to show you whos in charge of this, because he clearly didn't liked how comfortable you got with him. You didn't seemed to look mad at him for not fulfill your request, no, in fact you only sighed relived. Finally you were free from his cursed hands. He pressed your legs together and put them on his shoulder. You weren't ready for the big thing. You bearly can take his thick fingers, just looking at his cock made you almost pass out. "I don't think I'm ready for that.." you gulped, you only hoped to hear something about how you could do it if you wanted to or any words of encouragement.
"I know you can't." he said as his hand traveled to your pussy, collecting some of your juices to rub it on his cock along with his precum. "The moment I'll get inside that pussy of yours I'll make sure you won't be able to walk for days." he said as he slips his cock in between your thighs. He expected to get more than this in return, because in his head he deserves more than he gives, at least in that situation. But he's not that horny yet to forget about his morals. So this is enough for the moment, because he knows that in the future you'll be able to give him so much more than now.
He hated those eyes of yours. The way you would look so innocent, curious. Ughh. It just made him want to ruin you. Just look at the way you look at him right now. Big eyes, just as curious as always, yet he can see it more playful. It made him think that you're not taking him seriously. "Does it feel good?" he kept moving his hips back and forth, rubbing his cock on your skin. It felt so soft and warm. Your whole body was warm no matter where he puts his hands on you. He couldn't give you an answer, not because he couldn't, it was more because he didn't want to. Why don't you figure it out yourself? All he can do was to grunt, hopping you'll get the message.
His grip on your thighs was so tight that it might leave a bruise. He felt like your going to run away the moment you get a chance to. So all he can do was to grab you as close as he can. Keeping your legs in place as he moves his hips.
What was first a slow pace now turned into fast and desperate thrusts. He couldn't keep his head straight, he couldn't think anymore the moment he felt like hes getting closer and closer to that sweet release he kept chasing after. He wanted to hear something from you, it was too quiet. Yet he can't ask for it, because his ego is just not letting him.
He'll eat you up. The moment he would get inside that pussy of yours he'll make sure the whole neighborhood would hear his name. "I'd fuck that mouth of yours right now if I could." he let his thoughts out. He couldn't think of a single peaceful or good word to say to you. And you didn't said anything about it and took whatever he had to say. You watched him the whole time. You can clearly see that something is wrong with him. His face, his actions are showing so. "Fuuuck." he was so so so close. He had so many things to say yet he didn't said shit because it just didn't felt like it was the right time. You weren't in the same situation as him, you weren't going through the same rollercoaster of emotions. He really wanted to flip you over, fuck you from behind as he'd just call you a slut, or any names to degradate you. You could take it, can't you? You could take this load right here right now and thanks him for it at the end, won't you? Lost in his thoughts, he finally came all over your belly. Still moving his hips just to get everything all out.
What a night, huh. He felt into the bed right next to you, tired, and just wanting to get some sleep. Wasn't it surprising tho? He fucked differently for once and now he feels like he ran a marathon. And you had the audacity to look at him with those big eyes again. Looking so sweetly and ready to take him for real this time. "You'll sleep here tonight?"
"Who knows." he would do like always, he knew the answer yet he couldn't say that he was ready to leave in this instance your room to go back to his. He waited for you to fall asleep before he finally retreated to his bedroom.
He could only imagine how you'll react tomorrow when you can't see him. He thought you'll stay in your room just like always. But no, the next day you were in that kitchen, sitting next to him so shyly. It was like you were back to the beginning. You didn't want anything more from him than just ask if everything is alright between you too. Just to make sure everything stays the way it was before. But you can't really say anything since your landlord is also there. And this makes you feel so guilty.
"Ehh. You really done it, didn't you." the white haired guy said something. That scared you, your heart almost left your body. Does he knows? Were you in trouble? "Don't worry, Y/N. Whatever happened he probably doesn't even remembers about it." the dark haired guy only smiled like he didn't know why you were acting like that. Since his friend was so clueless maybe he could tease you about it a little.
"Hmm? What have I done?" you could see your soul leaving your body. All you wanted to do is to make sure that you're relationship stays the same. But this was too much. You were on the verge of crying.
"L- let's talk about it later!" you ran from there like always. How long would it last until you'll say something? He won't say a word until you do the first step. Why? Because he liked to see you cry. He didn't thought that he would bully you, but you clearly deserve it for playing with his head.
Imagine his surprise to see you the next day in the kitchen again. If he would be the first to come out his room, now he would make sure to come as late as possible. You could go to his room and say whatever you had to say, yet you didn't. You would go in that damn kitchen all the time to interact with them. Was that small talk enough for you? Didn't you wanted more? Because if you would come to his room he promise to reward you for your courage and give you a little bit of himself. You could even choose what you wanted from him. He would be glad to hear what you had to say. That if you stop going into that kitchen and just be straight forward. In his eyes you were a coward. Yet he loved toying you the way he wants.
You sat next to him again. This time more determined than before. You took out your phone and typed a simple question in your notepad.
'Can I ask you something?' you showed him your phone screen.
He acted like he didn't see it.
'I really want to ask you something.'
Still he acted like he didn't see anything.
This was pure madness. This was getting on your nerves. You stepped on his foot to get his attention. He gasped as he looked in shock at you. The nerves. The audacity. You point to your phone again yet he keeps acting like he doesn't see anything. He even turned his face away.
"Just talk already." Gojo only rolled his eyes. "What happened anyway?"
Geto looked at you. He didn't planned on saying anything unless you said it. He just wanted to fuck with your head after all. Nothing more besides getting on your nevers. You wanted to say it so bad. The words wouldn't come out your mouth when so many eyes were on you. It didn't matter if it were only them. You can't say it. So you did the only thing you had left. Retreat. At least for the moment. You got out of there and stormed in your room. Next time it's either a win or nothing at all. You swear to get an end to this and then you can live peacefully and go on with your life.
The next day you waited in the hallway for that stubborn man to come out his room. It was a long wait, yet you stayed by his door until he finally came out. "Are we good. Yes or no?" you went straight to the point. All these days of playing around made you sick of this.
"Why don't you come in so we could talk about it?" he wanted you in his room, he will get you there.
"I just want to know that nothing changed."
"What do you mean by that?" this damn wolf.
"Like. We're the same as before, right? I just want to make sure nothing changed between us. " he had that dumb smile on his face and he kept acting like he doesn't know shit.
"Come in and lets talk." this was making you so mad. He didn't wanted to talk when you tried before but now hes willing to talk about it? He grabbed your hand and dragged you in his room, pushing you against the door as soon as he closed it. Hands in your shirt going up as his lips touched yours. Here was your reward for taking such a big step.
"You said talk." you gasped for air.
"This is also a form of talking." his cold hands made you squirm. The way he's moving his hands up and down against your skin. He wanted to go all the way up to your breasts until you heard a someone knocking on the door.
"It's me. Just wanted to make sure you two are alright." this was clearly a way to get out of there before this situation gets worse.
"Ah yes. We're fine." a hand grabbed your arm, stopping you from going further away. That damn fox just can't let you go yet.
"Can I know what happened?" you tried to not panic, but you just couldn't. Your mind was still on whatever happened earlier.
"We watched a movie and we argued about it." it was far from the truth. But you'll just go with what Geto said. You can't think of a better excuse.
"Huh?" your landlord raised and eyebrow.
"It was a good movie. Right, Y/N?" the way this man haves to drag you through mud and hell before you could have a break.
You gulped. "Indeed." you can't even find your words.
"So we can go like how it was before then." this evil man said it like you weren't the one that kept trying to make sure everything is alright.
"I should put a parental lock on that tv." your landlord only sighed and turned around going back to the kitchen. You ran from there in your room. Only wanting a break from this madness.
#gojo satoru#gojo satoru smut#gojo smut#gojo x reader#jjk smut#jujutsu kaisen smut#geto x reader#geto smut#geto suguru#geto suguru smut
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your tags on that omegaverse post tho 👀
I could truly write a[nother] dissertation on my own fic lore and that might be the cringiest thing about me 😭✌️
But yeah! I've put a little more information under the cut for anyone who is interested 💛
The current and first fic in the series features Omega Pete (who begins as a Kuen-Kaan Omega - which in the lore of this verse is an Omega who has reached a certain age without going through their second presentation, a biological process that is triggered from being knotted for the first time, similar to some species that go through sexual maturity/biologically become fertile at different rates or in relation to viable mates. Without their second presentation, Omega's don't have heats, and their scents will be unique. In modern society it's widely considered a bad thing, it's used in media a lot the way a spinster is used a lot, this rhetoric that you can only be Kaan if you're of a certain age and have still never 'taken a knot' like 'omegas are supposed to' and thus have failed your 'biological purpose', but ofc there's nuance to that, Omega's can still have sex without taking a knot - I could go on about this forever) and Pete is not 100% comfortable in his gender because of stereotypes and how he never sees himself fitting into them etc. which isn't helped by other characters he comes across and their views on not just Omega's, but various other subgenders and specifically the idea of Pete being a Kaan Omega.
We also have Alpha Vegas, who has also always considered himself broken, but in actual fact is just dealing with a typical crisis of identity when an alpha driven society twists and poisons the stereotype of all the subgenders (including their own, wildly enough) so where Vegas believes 'i am broken for not feeling xyz, it is in fact just that in a modern society the way we interpret our instincts has to change and adapt, it's just no one is gonna talk about that. A good example I've brought up in text is the idea that Alpha's crave territory, but in a modern society how do they achieve that when it's something reserved for those financially able and if nothing else there's been a population boom? So it's all the modern ways that people change and adapt to their subgender instincts.
I won't talk too much about KimChay yet, but I know there are a few people looking forward to what is coming for them and honestly I am too, their arc is SO fascinating to me.
Kim has already appeared in this fic, and he is an Alpha, and I guess as a small spoiler I will say is that Chay in this series is a Beta.
If I got into the full system I am working with for Alpha Beta and Omega dynamics I'm playing with I'd be here for hours. Some of it is the same as traditional but I'm also growing a lot of it from home as well so... 👀
Early on I made a lore document, and this is linked in the fic as well, but for anyone interested you can find it here.
That has pretty much everything re: my evolutionary and biological lore in it (so you might be able to see how certain themes for certain characters are going to start emerging, esp for KimChay 👀👀)
If you read this whole thing, I am on my knees proposing thank you for coming to my ted talk about my fic (which you can find here - if VegasPete isn't your thing, the KimChay arc is on the horizon, so keep your eye out for that) and I apologise for my intense need to yap about this verse 😭
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I HAVE A BONE TO PICK WITH THE KUNG FU PANDA SERIES, I'M GRABBING IT BY THE THROAT AND DRAGGING IT TO THE DEPTHS
JUST COME'RE, COME'RE FOR A MINUTE AND EXPLAIN TO ME
WHAT. THE FUCK. IS THIS?
This has GOTTA be another Macaque disguise in order to mess with Wukong's image cause I refuse to believe that THIS is Wukong.
Now don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong with adaptions made of our beloved monkey gremlin, a lot of them are super cool and well made! But there is a difference between an adaption and then just full on disgracing the source material BECAUSE HOW CAN ONE FUCK UP THIS BADLY ON SUCH A WELL KNOWN AND BELOVED CHARACTER? OKAY SIT DOWN FOR CLASS TIME AND LET ME STATE MY CASE.
First of all the looks, why is only one eye red and gold? I'm sorry but if I remember correctly Wukong wasn't half way in the furnace. My second gripe is with the monkey species they chose for him. Listen, Wukong is supposed to be the representation and embodiment of a monkey, he isn't supposed to be a specific species of monkey in the first place as he is not only his own species of monkey but he is supposed to represent all the monkey species. So making him into a specific species of monkey doesn't work all that well in the first place, but out of all the species they could've picked why the species that looks like a reverse oompa loompa?
AND DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON HIS POWERS
Okay okay, get this, not only did they heavily nerf him, but they also made it so all his power comes from THE GOLDEN CIRCLET. YEAH THAT'S RIGHT THEY MADE THE TRAUMA RING AROUND HIS HEAD INTO A CROWN THAT GIVES HIM POWERS AND THAT HE WANTS TO GET THE CROWN BACK.
The crown is most known for being the equivalent of a shock collar for him, how do you mess that one up THAT BAD?
And we haven't even touched on his backstory yet oh no no no no. Sit down as you are gonna LOVE this one folks
Apparently Wukong was great friends with the gods in heaven until he was framed for something he didn't do and was imprisoned, not in the mountains by the Buddha, but was imprisoned in the red jade mines for it. Not only that but he basically poisoned Po and his trainees as he could only get out if he replaced himself in the mines with another and keep them there until like sunset. First of all Wukong would never do that in the first place sure he was impulsive and reckless but he wasn't bad for the sake of being bad, he was just a bit of a trouble maker that needed proper guidance. NOT ONLY THAT BUT PO'S TRAINEES WHO ARE LITERALLY KIDS BEAT HIM. LIKE- HELLO? LITERAL KIDS BEAT SUN WUKONG? THE MOST OP CHARACTER IN KNOWN HISTORY?
Apparently the ldb was the one behind things and Wukong needed to stop her which we saw that be done much better in Lego Monkie Kid (amazing show I HIGHLY recommend watching that instead of this). And Wukong redeemed himself and became besties with the gods again.
OH OH AND TO ADD MORE SALT TO THE WOUND? MONKEY'S BROTHER IN KFP IS NAMED "WU KONG", THE SAME BROTHER WHO CAUSED THEIR OWN MOM TO DIE DUE TO HIS OWN SELFISHNESS.
LIKE BRO WTF DO THEY HAVE AGAINST WUKONG? WHY ALL THE BEEF AGAINST SUCH A BELOVED AND AMAZING CHARACTER AND MAKING HIM OUT TO BE A HORRIBLE AND PATHETIC GUY WHEN HE ISN'T?
Kung Fu Panda is beloved by China for it's good representation and understanding of it's culture, so how the franchise could let one of the most well known characters in Chinese mythology and stories get slanderized THIS BADLY by one of their spin off series is beyond me.
I know this has just been me ranting about how a recurring character in a series was characterized in a spin off series kid show people hardly know about but like- for some reason I was just absolutely flabbergasted by this characterization of Wukong as a whole in a franchise that's known for doing plenty of good research on chinese culture, mythology, belief and stories. My only hope is that this was Macaque disguised as a fake Wukong the whole time just pulling a funny prank.
#come on people#we can do better than this#kfp#kung fu panda#kfp po#sun wukong#jttw wukong#jttw sun wukong#journey to the west#jttw#jttw monkey king#monkey king#lmk#lego monkie kid#lmk sun wukong#lmk wukong#lego monkie kid sun wukong#lmk monkey king#lego monkie kid monkey king#lego sun wukong#lego wukong#lego monkey king#lego#macaque#six eared macaque#lmk macaque#lego monkie kid macaque#jttw macaque#jttw six eared macaque#lmk six eared macaque
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