Ship Manifesto, Yamamoto/Gokudera (Katekyo Hitman Reborn!), Part II
Due to big size, the essay has to be divided in two parts.
Canon extra.
There’s a special section of canon, or at least, somehow canon I have to mention.
Yamamoto and Gokudera share a decent amount of mutual covers - more than any other characters.
Chapter covers , color spreads, volume covers - you have a big assortment of the boys suggestively posing around, looking pretty.
That does nothing to lesser the fandom’s resolve to put the two together.
8059.
Upon a first look, it seems that Yamamoto and Gokudera are easily shoved into the convenient, always working category of “opposites attract.” Of course, you’ll hardly find two more different people - practically on every position where you put “white” to Gokudera, you can put a “black” for Yamamoto. But that’s not how they work, at least not on the surface.
When it comes to more personal types of affection than ultimate fealty, Gokudera is, metaphorically speaking, your common fifteen year old schoolgirl who will hit the head of a classmate she likes with a math textbook.
The whole concept of being attached to anyone equals to being weak in his mind, so if he can’t avoid the emotion, he will at least try to mask it under constant insults and deliberate rudeness.
He proves in more than once with behavior around people who are somehow significant to him - his sister, whom he refuses to recognize as a sibling at all and literally can’t stand the sight of; his closest-to-father figure Shamal, whom he never ceases to insult.
Along with it, he’s internally starved for attention and affection, even if he won’t admit it to save his life.
He needs someone who would care, who would spent infinite amounts of time tending to Gokudera’s worries and little quirks, who would be able to understand the purpose of his angry outbursts and the tender insecurity deeply underneath them.
Using mushy metaphor, Gokudera is an angry stray that you need to tentatively bring in, ignoring his hisses and scratches, and patiently tame, not rushing and letting him get used to you without pushing it.
And that’s what Yamamoto does. Raised in the atmosphere of love, used to openly showing his emotions and his preferences, he’s desperately in need of something with edges in his fuzzy marshmallow life, and is initially drawn to Gokudera as the first person who doesn’t like him back by default. Eventually it evolves into something entirely different - figuring out who Gokudera really is, understanding his motivations, deep attachment and honest affection. To Yamamoto, Gokudera goes from a stand-offish shell to a whole being.
Over-emotional, bad-tempered Gokudera tends to see things as he wants them to be seen, and not what they actually are; he often ends up having the actual point fly completely over his head, and is, despite his constant efforts, quite easy to read. Out of the two it’s Yamamoto who, in spite of Gokudera’s superior intelligence in matters of science, has a better sense of reality.
Yamamoto has enough instinctive comprehension to find the right course of behavior. Every day he, again metaphorically speaking, shows Gokudera his open hands and proves that he comes in peace. When Gokudera bites, he stubbornly refuses to fight back. He doesn’t push it, he just waits for Gokudera to become ready, to accept, and every day Yamamoto’s dripping slowly but steadily wears away Gokudera’s stone.
The amount of love Yamamoto is able - and willing, that’s important - to give is overwhelming, and in fact in would be more than enough even for the both of them, but once Gokudera finally feels himself safe in believing Yamamoto, he will most probably hold on onto Yamamoto for dear life. I hardly picture to myself Gokudera adorning Yamamoto’s bed with roses or professing his love aloud to people on the streets to hear, but I have a strong impression that they are going to become a very steady couple.
Their relationship is often described as “dysfunctional”, but I have to disagree here. Once they reach a certain point of openness and understanding between each other, they can establish an exceptionally stable relationship, where not everything, is, of course, perfect, but all the pieces fit together.
Personal history.
I was introduced to Reborn several months ago, almost accidentally, by a friend.
The first question I asked was “Are there any good het pairings?”. “Nah, no,” - she answered, “but you wont even notice that. You’ll see yourself.” I was rather skeptical, since I normally don’t ship boy/boy, but I started reading anyway.
After presumably the tenth chapter I was really tempted to check the genre again, in case they accidentally forgot to add “-ai” to “shounen”, because the whole Yamamoto/Gokudera movement was as apparent as day.
Reading further, I - don’t even know how - have found myself completely drawn to them because, for some inane reason, it works. I always need to feel some base to start shipping, and here you can feel the chemistry, emotions, progress, the way they feel towards each other, and the whole shipping business has nothing, I swear, nothing, in common with simply placing two hot boys together, as that usually happens with yaoi pairings. I’m not an expert, through - 8059 were and are my only yaoi OTP.
But I fell, and fell hard, so after about six months spent reading, writing, squealing helplessly at every other new chapter, I’m sitting here, writing my first ever ship manifesto.
Fanfiction/fanart recs.
hitman_reborn - the main Katekyo Hitman Reborn! community.
khr_yaoi - the general yaoi reborn community.
yamagoku - the biggest 8059 community with an impressive collection of fanart and fanfiction. Since the mangaka presented to us smoking hot ten-years-later versions of guardians, variations within the single pairing are countless. It can be regular ones, TYL ones, TYLxregular ones, threesome, foursome, selfcest, double selfcest - the only limit is your imagination.
yamagoku8059 - fresh and cozy community.
8059challenge - the challenge community for, you know, R-rated fanfiction.
decimoluce - scanlation group solely for 8059 material
Fanfiction
I can promise that you will be pleasantly surprised with quantity and quality of 8059/5980 fanfiction, when you’ll enter the fandom.
recomenmi - 8059 fanfic recs. They have a great assortment, although haven’t collected any of last fics yet.
So, I’m providing few fresh/unmentioned ones. I also urge you to check another works of those writers, since I’m unable to add ALL stories.
“The Keeper” and “Emotional Intellegence” by Quillslinger.
“Bowl of oranges” and “The likely lads” by Synonym.
“Lest things become predictable ” by mischief maker 2.0
“And somewhere along the line” by iluxia
“No such thing as Salvation” by pollinia
“Sorta Kinda Maybe” by eternalamarath
“A Lifetime in Fifty Minutes” by saying_sooth
“The Only Living Boy in New York” by downjune
“Counting Kisses” by ivy_queen
“Carving Confetti” and “Two Knights Endgame” by doomcake
“Stray Capacitance” and “The Object of Longing” by rodickparker
“Take It Easy” by sutlers
“Paradox” by withloveonly
“Leaps Of Faith” by ranty_rie
“Wardrobe Malfunction” by Lys ap Adin
“Breakfast at your place” by tekla_hatti
“Il sonmo di un uomo ridicolo” and “Take Me To Your Leader” by furiosity
“Lacrima” by filthypages
“Airwaves” by amcw177
“The Useless Man” by saxon_dogs
“Gokudera’s cute little coyotes” by chudari
“Green Eyed Monster” by mincemint
“Hiherarchy” by kiyoshi_mitarai
“Ten Years Layer Today” by IHatePants
Fanart
8059-Club at DeviantArt
Everything by nuakiire
Storybook page fanart by Baskerville
8059challenge: The couch by ch1zuru
Doujin Circles
Middle Range
Apricot Guns
Matreshka
Nikushoku
DKB
I8me
Eternal Snow
Froggy Froggy
Thank you for reading,
and if I have increased your love for Yamamoto and Gokudera even a little bit, I feel myself accomplished.
~Lamp.