Day 07: A coupling you can’t stand
Ahh, I really didn’t want to answer this question, mostly because there’s still a lot of animosity in this fandom when it comes to couples (both canon and fanon). I am, however, strangely vindicated by the use of the word ‘coupling’ instead of couple. And I don’t think it’ll be important to anyone, but it does matter to me; I’m a fan of semantics and syntax.
More complete (and likely unpopular) answer under the cut.
Shipping in Digimon has always been kind of strange to me because the series never really went that way for me, I guess. I vaguely remember thinking Mimi and Yamato looked fantastic together but that was mostly because I loved Mimi and I kinda digged Yamato, so it felt natural for me to assume that my favourites should be together. Then the epilogue happened and I was so shocked, lol, because I never expected to see them as adults. Worse even, I never expected that, of all possible combinations in the world, Yamato and Sora would’ve been endgame. Sure, lots of people have spent hours analysing the series and quoting one of the creators and explaining why it’s such a vastly misunderstood ship and what have you (what do you know, maybe one day their ‘subtlety’ will be recognised as genius writing), but at the end of the day, it’s still out-of-left-field and rather bland to me (whatever planning was behind it, the decision still feels rather arbitrary).
Now that I’m older, I realise that the coupling rubbed me the wrong way because I can’t see them going anywhere exciting in the future. I know this is my personal opinion and that canon shippers will disregard it (I’ll give it to them if they do, too), but I do think that they could’ve been a little more flexible in this decision. It always feels a little lazy, like they both could’ve done better. I mean, whatever, the epilogue is canon and that’s fine, but it’s like surviving on tofu because it goes well with veggies but never actually trying meat and just, never having a good steak. Kind of a pointless existence, if you ask me.
But I get it. I get it and … and that’s it, really. I just get it, and it really suscitates nothing else. Most of the time I’m indifferent to the couple, other times I’m a little disappointed. The fact that it was planned from the start made me go ‘oh, so that’s why those arcs are so choppy and dramatic, ok’, instead of ‘wow! totally perfect for each other!’, and I wonder how much of their story was written exclusively for this reason. Suddenly, the inconsistencies that kinda bugged me about them make a little more sense. Then again, I’m a crack shipper and the more unintentionally perfect for each other two characters are, the harder I ship them. I do headcanon them as being friends but it’s a very particular friendship and, if I had to be honest, it’s one of the best I envision, simply because of how similar they can be at times. When I have the time, I’ll write me some good ol’ fashioned friendly Sorato, even.
In the fandom, I generally shy away from the ship because there seems to be a rather petulant attitude around it that I actively try to avoid, and not very many high quality stories that I have read. A lot of it are just re-writes of canon things that we all pretty much know, and a lot of it feels fantastically OOC (but after those bizarre CD-dramas, what can we call strange, really?) Generally, I have found that, for some reason, this couple is better managed as background noise, just like it was on the series. I have found authors talented enough to have me ship them, even if it’s just for five pages or so, but it’s not the norm. I don’t think I’ve ever been really surprised by them, and while that may be too little for some, it’s all that really matters to me. That said, I don’t really care that they ended up being canon. At this point, a lot of this series is completely irrelevant to me, tbh. I don’t think I’d ever say I can’t stand it; mostly, it just fades into the background for me.
I still think it’s pretty cool that people can find something to love about them even after all these years (and there are such cute fanarts, too!). Also I don’t think I need to agree with something in order to understand it, so it doesn’t matter to me when other people don’t find them as awkward as I do, lol. I also don’t expect them to see eye-to-eye with me on this, because I think that we do expect different things from the characters and that reflects in the ships we ship.
Ahh, coupling. What a good word to summarise my feelings on this.