Happy one-year anniversary of my FafTakElma's Wip! Started January 4, 2022 and so far not finished—a great reason to celebrate, of course!
Oh. Do you want to hear the word of FafTakElma?
Then let's go!
This is the dynamic I imagine for them:
I just love them together and understand that it may seem strange due to their lack of interactions in the anime, so here I will talk more about why and how they work (or almost work, at least).
Almost all of their interactions are taken from Elma's spin-off manga "Elma OL Nikki", so if you haven't read it and don't want to take spoiler, I recommend stopping the post here—the same warning for the main manga, that there is a spoiler from recent chapters (but not so much).
The Takiya x Elma dynamic
They are the typical trope of co-workers to lovers. Even in the anime they are shown getting along very well in the work environment and complement each other in the scenes where they appear with Kobayashi. A friendly, but not so intimate relationship. But it is in the spin-off that we see their real interactions; Elma as an outgoing, cheerful and somewhat silly woman with Takiya, a very patient and very nice guy. Elma is usually shown asking Takiya for help, asking him questions so that he can answer them, and trying to help him (even if most of the time the attempts are completely unsuccessful). As a harmony dragon, I feel that Elma has a natural potential to get along with Takiya's calm and friendly spirit. They would surely reel for a long time in this friendship until Elma, with her terrible dragon social tact, confesses to him. Sure, Fafnir would be very jealous and defensive that Elma was invading his space and pulling Takiya into more social activities (and that's what I'm writing about), but in time I think they would come to an agreement to share Takiya harmoniously and consequently become friends.
Spoilers for chapter 113 of the main manga!!!
I know that the long arc that wrapped up around these chapters is about Elma's arranged marriage and the implications of a polyamour/love triangle between Kobayashi, Elma and Tohru, but I'm not a big fan of that dynamic, much less this arc of the manga. I like hc Tohru and Elma having a past relationship, but I don't think they have a good romantic dynamic in the current moments. Good for those who ship the three of them together (it's a cute ship for sure), but not for me. What I took away important from these chapters, however, is the implicit confirmation that Elma is polyamorous. She suggests several times to Tohru a polyamory between the three of them, even though Tohru doesn't seem willing to share Kobayashi.
And so we come to the end of chapter 113, where she returns to work and confesses to liking Takiya too! He is quite stunned (as you can see in the picture) and as much as this is completely dismissed (as is almost all the information in this manga), you can see how much her innocent nature makes her love everyone. And that's very cute. I think that in the right way, they could work out very well in a canonical setting.
Fafiya is my main ship, though. If Elma and Takiya were to stay together, I would prefer polyamory, which is impossible to happen. Even more so in the manga, where Fafnir barely has any stories focused on him or in which he appears at all. The Fafiya moments delivered to us in the anime are completely original, directed by the sadly departed director of Dragon Maid. So it's something to think about.
Chaos Dragon meets Harmony Dragon
Now, I don't ship Fafnir x Elma. They wouldn't work romantically from my perspective, however, they would make great friends! In the manga mostly they have no meaningful interactions, but the spin-off is filled with moments of them and the dynamic is GOLD. Because of the difference in their natures inherited by their factions, the comedy they create fills the scenes with joy and good laughs. They are true opposites communicating; Fafnir with that edgylord aura with a ray of sunshine that is Elma, but who at the same time share one thing in common: ignorance about human topics. The innocence of both of them in that regard is so amusing, it is as if they could understand each other for a moment. If they got on good terms, the polyamor relationship between Takiya, Fafnir and Elma, no matter how much Fafnir and Elma were not romantically involved could work just as well. I have even more pages of their dynamic (which are not few) since there was an entire chapter dedicated to this duo, but unfortunately tumblr has a picture limit.
There isn't a topic for Fafiya because it's pretty obvious why they work and why they are one of the healthiest couples in anime. They are still my OTP and I love them as a couple, although I would like to see them with Elma in an OT3. Takiya is great at dragon taming (no pun intended), so I feel like he would know how to balance his two opposing dragons and put them on good terms without forcing the bar and always giving Fafnir plenty of room. They are dragons, so the prejudice for that kind of relationship is non-existent.
They would still have their challenges, but at the end of the day it's a ship that I really appreciate and wish I could introduce to people.
Thanks for reading!