I think I actually want to start off this ask by saying this was not very easy to do lol. The two universes are in many ways fundamentally different, and looking for common lines in the sand was kind of hard. (Caution: There will be no strong Nier: Automata spoilers going in, but if you want to remain unspoiled, read no further).
The main fundamental difference is that outside of one specific timeline (Notes), the Nasuverse is never at any point FUBAR (there is one exception I’ll talk about below, but it’s not a specific, elaborated timeline). There’s also at some point a way to fix everything; there’s an evil to defeat or a True Magic wielding homunculi to make things better. This isn’t the case in Nier: Automata; the world is FUBAR, there’s no winning, and everything is fucked, and that makes a huge difference. You can’t just, say, ship 2B with like Drake. Drake is a free spirit who could travel the open seas not giving a damn and doing whatever she wished. You think that, to an extent, that wouldn’t be resented? I think it would personally. So a lot of these follow the theme of “similar experience or ideals”. It’s also very playable character focused, so keep in mind I’m not going to bring up like 6O’s 20 girlfriends or something. This being said, let’s get started. A crossover ship I’d dig: The first one I want to talk about is *drumroll* Medea x 9S and I’m actually specifying 9S here instead of anyone else for a reason. They were both innocent, naive people who found out the world often had a vendetta, or was a lie. A lot of what Medea did was because of the goddesses, and her world and life were shattered. They both turned to revenge, and they both estranged themselves from society (or what was left of it). Others include 2B x Serenity (spoilers Serenity is my big guilty pleasure ship lol) which is a pretty big spoiler as to why and androids are immune to everything except mackerel right?
A crossover BroTP I’d dig: EMIYA WITH THE ENTIRETY OF YORHA. Remember when I said there was an exception? It’s worth remembering EMIYA was a Counter Guardian, and this meant that his job was to basically clean up FUBAR timelines. We don’t know the specifics of any of them (maybe he showed up somewhere along the Nier timeline? *shot*), but because of that, I feel like he would understand the most of what they’re going through. ESPECIALLY 9S but also 2B and A2, and EMIYA is the Fate mom he’s going to adopt everyone *shot*
There are also a number of smaller ones I’ve considered, like Atalanta and 2B or Boudica and A2 (I could see this one being a romantic ship as well, but it straddles the line). Oh, and before I forget, for the love of God don’t leave Adam and Shakespeare in a room together, they don’t need to talk about the facets of what it means to be human.
A crossover Frenemies I think would be inevitable: This one is really tough because my views on a lot of the relationships between the bunch are polarized: either it is likely to work, or it’s going to go up in flames. But this is where people like Cu Chulainn or Achilles or Sherlock Holmes would come in with most of the cast. Definitely, good people, they could probably get along with but would also probably want to punch as well. They all would at least understand (Cu Chulainn was a soldier who fought Connacht practically single-handedly) each other but not be totally compatible. I don’t know though, this one is really tough. A crossover badass duo I think would be inevitable: This is where Cu Alter and 2B come in right? This is definitely the only one that seems right but they’re so similar and yet in ways that couldn’t be described with any of the other points. They’re both weapons of wars, they both kill because they’re supposed to, it works.
A crossover animosity I think would be inevitable: Hooooo boi so there’s a lot of characters that I don’t see working out at all. From the jackasses (such as Shakespeare or Anderson) to the inventor trio to just, most of the Servants who wouldn’t be able to find a common ground. I think the biggest mentions here though as Fran and Kato Danzo. I initially considered putting Fran in the frenemies or ship slot but I decided against it. With Fran, Fran behaves very much like a machine: she’s new to the world, she’s an artificial lifeform created in the image of humans like Adam or Eve (also she’s literally supposed to be a replica of biblical Eve in lore) and she’s exploring her consciousness and her role in the world. Danzo is…literally a robot. I think the two of them would have really rough goings at first with YoRHa in general due to these facts, but I think with time and luck they would smooth over, just like 2B and 9S and A2 did with Pascal. But the animosity at first would be really big.
So I want to color my hair silver like Anastasia’s (F/GO) and my GF wants to make her hair Camilla’s (FE: Fates) purple.
One is Tsar of Russia and the other is Queen of Nohr and they’re fucking lesbians.
