Keep me close within your ribs
The last few months were a bit of a whirlwind for my personal life, but I enjoyed noodling on this fic between bouts of writer's block. It's...a bit of a strange one
When We Talk About Love, a choose-your-own adventure story about love, regrets, and a pining 40yo Sanji. Or maybe a pining 40yo Zoro? It's up to you ♥️
Featuring art commissioned from the wonderful
@just_minhthi
. Every time I see these pieces, I tear up!
My take on all “what would Zoro do at Whole Cake” and/or “what did Zoro say to Sanji after Whole Cake” questions is that Zoro didn’t require an apology of Robin after she rejoined the crew, so why on earth would he demand one from Sanji?
Thinking about Sanji casually calling Zoro “sweetheart” in public for the first time, not thinking anything about it, just “Hey grab some eggs would you, sweetie?” and Zoro falling on his ass from surprise in the middle of the grocery store
Zoro, fists clenched, vein bursting on his face: I stg cook, just tell me if you like me as a top or a bottom
Sanji, sobbing into his salad: Unfortunately I like you for your personality
Possessed by
@gaypiratehell
's AU and Aussie's art here, I wrote a (longer than expected) thing about Sanji kissing Zoro's back scars, and how their meaning might come to change.
been thinking a lot about
@gaypiratehell
's 'everyone dies au' and how sanji would need to help zoro by working the scar tissue on his back so that it wouldnt heal too stiff
My firm belief that Zoro would absolutely be into Sanji’s feet & want to worship them is constantly at war with my equally strong belief that Sanji has basically no sensitivity below the knees due to his fighting style
My personal policy in fandom has always been to only talk about the works I love and enjoy. When people create from their heart, for free, with no possibility of compensation aside from creative fulfillment, saying hateful things about those works feels unforgivably cruel.
Lil ZS threadfic drabble about doing laundry, my most beloathed chore
1/?
One day Zoro overhears Sanji talking to Nami about ideal qualities in a partner. He doesn’t catch the whole list, but he does get:
@toushikata
Lmaoooo yes exactly. Everyone else in the world is so intimidated by Zoro, but the Baratie guys just know him as some punk kid who got beat up on their porch. Man’s never gonna seem cool to them
My partner’s been playing TRANSISTOR this weekend, and man I love the art for Hades & all, but to me Transistor is SGG’s visual masterpiece. Every image has
@0jenzee0
flexing!
Such a stunning world & gorgeous goegeous game!
@r57k1w0xz1_
I once contemplated a scenario where Wado shattered in this way, but Zoro still managed to kill Sanji. Then after the battle, Zoro made a new sword from Wado’s hilt and one of Sanji’s bones (with his skeleton strong as steel), to keep both his promises close 😔😔
Please don't let me love you
Continuing my streak of posting angstier, Sanji-centric fics on his birthday! A 5+1 of hanahaki, where Sanji can't stop himself from falling for Zoro over and over again
Happy Soft Boy Monday! Rolling into celebrate with my first multi-chapter fic, featuring a slow burn, a particularly oblivious Zoro, and lots of malfunctioning library printers
Zoro nods, a twin smile creeping over his face.
They get the rest of the laundry folded in record time that day. The sheets have never been neater.
/fin
“They need to be able to cook for themselves. Don’t have to be amazing at it, but it’d be nice to have a partner who’s self-sufficient - who could feed me if I get sick. They’d need to be strong, so I wouldn’t have to spend every fight worrying for them. I’d want to be-"
@HelloHarubo
Makes me ponder a canon ZS moment, perhaps in Wano...
Sanji, holding injured Zoro: You would never settle for a quiet life, huh moss? You’d be miserable without a battle
Zoro, smiling: I dunno, curly. In another life, I would have loved just doing laundry and taxes with you
“About the sheets,” Sanji starts, sounding oddly nervous. “You know, the best way to fold them is with two people working together.”
Sanji smiles at him then, a shy, fond thing that makes Zoro’s chest burn with affection. “Wanna give me a hand with this one?”
“Also, this is silly-“ he hears Sanji say. “But it irks me when people don’t know how to do laundry. What kind of adult doesn’t know how to fold a fitted sheet? I don’t want to be a parent- I want a PARTNER.”
And Zoro’s heart sinks, because this, this might kill his chances.
Next time Sanji’s turn on the laundry roster comes up, Zoro is ready. He joins Sanji wordlessly by the clothesline, grabbing shirts and folding pants silently, trying not to betray the way his heart feels like it’s beating out of its chest.
From that day on, Zoro takes an avid interest in laundry. He doesn’t help often with the washing itself, but he joins in on every folding session with increasingly rabid interest, mimicking the casual motions of Nami & Usopp, and correcting Luffy & Chopper’s messier techniques.
“You don’t have to say anything,” Zoro says quickly. “I’m gonna have a drink.”
Zoro only gets a step or two away before a hand on his arm yanks him to a stop.
“Hey, marimo!”
Zoro turns, eyes wide, to see Sanji, cheeks bright red in a flush that goes all the way down his neck.
“And when you said your list, it all- it all sounded like me. Except-“ Zoro’s fists tightened, frustration filling him anew. “Except the STUPID fitted sheet. I’ve been training all week to try to figure out how the damn thing is supposed to fold, and I just can’t figure it out.”
Zoro can’t see his face, but he can imagine the way Sanji flushes. “Well, I’d need to be physically attracted to them of course.”
Zoro can do the math in his head. He’s not the best cook, but he can make do well-enough that the whole list applies to him.
“Why even come help me if you’re just going to undo all my work?”
As Sanji keeps ranting about incompetent grass, Zoro can’t stop himself before the words come tumbling out.
“I heard you!”
His anxiety rises when they get to the end of the line and sees it: a fitted sheet.
Zoro grabs at the cloth impulsively, ignoring Sanji’s surprised “Hey!” as the sheet is ripped out of his hands.
Zoro takes a breath. Calms himself. He can do this.
Sanji pauses mid-sentence, turning to stare at Zoro. “Pardon?”
Zoro takes a breath, then continues. “I heard you talking to Nami the other day. About what you want. In a, you know. A person. A partner.”
He can feel his face getting redder with every word and looks away.
His shoulders slump, the shame of defeat slipping into his chest. “I guess that’s a sign,” Zoro finishes dejected.
There’s a silence then, in which Zoro still can’t meet Sanji’s eyes. It’s as good as any rejection, he thinks, and turns to head up to the crow’s nest.
He picks up two corners, finding them outside the band of elastic. Carefully he brings them together. Step 1: solid. Bingo. Zoro gives himself a silent high-five.
Things take a turn when he tries rotating the sheet to fold it a second time.
“What the hell, marimo?”
Zoro looks up at Sanji mortified. Shit. He was so concentrated on getting the sheet right that he forgot not to act like a fool.
“I just WASHED that you idiot,” Sanji shouts, brushing past Zoro to pick the pile of fabric off the ground.
Thinking about Teen Sanji starting to wear suits at the Baratie, but his clothes are a weird mix of thrift store finds and hand-me-downs from Zeff, none of which quite fits right, most of it’s too big, but nothing Sanji can’t make work in a pinch
No matter how hard he struggles, Zoro can’t get the damn thing to resemble anything neater than a lumpy pile of cloth. He folds and smooths, grumbling in frustration all the while. After a particularly discouraging fold, he growls aloud and drops the entire mess onto the deck.
This ‘pining Sanji + oblivious Zoro fic’ is slowly turning into a “5 times Sanji tried to get Zoro to take a bath + 1 time he did” and I am simply powerless to stop its trajectory
Blaming Noen for my thoughts of Sanji in a cute lil crop top, halfway through a cigarette, wind-tossed hair, shirt riding up just that little bit more as he fucks Zoro into the mattress
Additionally, a lil reminder that AO3 is run by volunteers & funded solely by donations. So since the site is back up, consider throwing them a bit of cash if you’re able, as I imagine the last 24hrs have been very stressful & expensive for their team!
I hope some of you people complaining about how you can't get through your day without AO3, you read fics like you breathe air, how this is so hard for you personally etc etc are going to leave some actual comments on those fics when the site is back up
@SailorFailures
Imagining him having an epiphany one day, exclaiming “All this time I thought Mary was your sweetheart, when in fact you lost a pet lamb! Considering my longing for dear Laboon, this oversight was quite unforgivable of me!” while the crew just laughs and laughs
Revin' up your engine, listen to the howling' roar
I lost my mind when Muki posted Top Gun Zoro last month and my brain's been full of nothing but fighter pilots and airplanes ever since!!
Blueberry Coffee
Happy birthday to dear
@MatchaSanji
!!! Haru and I had so much fun writing this very silly coffee shop AU for you, with pining Zoro, flirty Sanji, and lots of doofus boy shenanigans
And yes, I absolutely tried the coffee for research
Happy New Year's Eve everyone! I got lost writing cooking scenes these last few weeks 🤣
Here's my gift for
@sharkofbreath
in the
#zsclubsecretsanta2022
. I hope you enjoy, friend! ❤️❤️
Felt insane writing this one, but here we are!
My late-game contribution to
#AZSZtober2022
, coming in on entirely the wrong day and mixing up several prompts
Tripping over myself to fall into your arms
Chapter 6 - Paper Jam: Check Output Tray
Happy Soft Boy Monday everyone! I hope you all enjoy the final chapter! Please mind the updated tags, as we finally earn our E rating here (among other things)
If I post an earnest caption about how lovely it has been to see my good friend
@HelloHarubo
in person, I’ll become wildly embarrassed, so this is what you get instead
@8balldoodles
Maddy I’m losing my mind over Mihawk’s expression in the last panel, his little bemused “What did I do to deserve this child” in the face of Zoro’s chewing is so so fucking funny
Could have also phrased this as “my desire to make Zoro a nasty lil toesucker is forever at odds with how much I’d enrage
@lerr_writes_fic
if I asked her to beta a feet fic” and it would be equally true 🤣
@sunnysuguwu
Oh god this wrecked me. Very torn between the idea that the 'All Dead' Sanji would happily lose his hands to get back to Zoro, and the even sadder thought that there would be no better possible leverage to force this version of Sanji to comply than a threat against Zoro's life
@gaypiratehell
Prior to joining the crew?
Luffy: not into sex
Zoro: has maybe had a handjob or had his dick sucked, nothing further
Nami: could go either way bc of how guarded she was prior to joining SHs
Usopp: that boy has a promise ring, he is saving himself for Romance
@dilfosaur
TBH, your vigilance about blocking bigots/jerks/annoying ppl and generally setting boundaries on here is so aspirational!! It just seems like the healthiest thing to do on this awful bird app!
Happy birthday to our wonderful, beloved
@HelloHarubo
!!
To celebrate, I put my pride aside and wrote you the dreaded ✨Dentist AU✨ of your dreams, with help and ART from
@MatchaSanji
!
We love you so so much, sweet Haru!!!
Happy Soft Boy Monday!! I hope everyone is having a 10/10 day so far ❤️❤️❤️
Please enjoy a new round of library shenanigans, as Zoro makes an attempt to level the playing field
@sunnysuguwu
Imagine Zoro being forced to attend the wedding, with the collar on. A so-called "endorsement from the last of the Straw Hat Pirates." Both of them alternately seething and broken.
Very endeared by everyone exchanging tumblrs and discords. Reminds me of kids hastily writing down phone numbers and email addresses at the end of summer camp
@sunnysuguwu
@gaypiratehell
The saddest is double-cuffs: collar on Zoro’s neck to make Sanji comply, and bracelets on Sanji’s wrists to make sure Zoro doesn’t try to free them himself
Oh wow, thank you for 500 followers! I'm touched and frankly startled that so many of you enjoy my nonsense! Thanks so much for the support!
In lieu of a poll, my buds demanded I do an About the Author. They are absolute nuts and sent me this list to work through, so here goes!
Leopard Taming
…
Lucci tries his best to seduce Mayor Iceburg, and finds himself increasingly, violently frustrated when met with indifference and condescension
**plz mind the tags on this one!!
@Balderdashofaf
YES, exactly this. Sanji drawling out a “Careful not to get lost, darling moss” in the way he’s always fantasized about, and Zoro’s knee-jerk reaction reads it as condescending/taunting 😭😭
@SailorFailures
Awwwwwww 🥺
The difference in their posture here makes me think it’s a ‘half-asleep Zoro kisses Sanji in without thinking because that’s what he does when Dream Sanji brings him booze’ situation.
And Sanji’s just 😳😳 “who, me? I? Get kiss?”
@olivesanthea
For myself, I have always assumed the first option for canon (grows along the curl), and the second option for modern/real-world AUs (long/bushy eyebrows that curl up at the ends)
@8balldoodlesR18
Ok but how many times is Sanji able to grt away with it before Zoro either catches on or gets sick from spending all night in a cold bath?
#sbs105
ok but Who is going to write the multi-generational crime family saga of the East Blue mountain bandits vs Roronoa village swordsmen vs boatload of Wano expats