For the Shipping bingo card:
Sigurd/Riddle
Mikamatsu
Ienzo/Sephiroth
👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀
You manufacture situations in which I can talk I love you
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Sigurd/Riddle
An actual bingo for once??? Their POWER
So uh if you haven't read Undertaker Riddle yet and you don't want to be spoiled I heavily suggest you look away because there's no way to talk about them without spoilers
Anyways BY GOD
You wanna talk King and his knight? Try king and his most loyal secretary
French revolution came to town and on his way to hell Sigurd stopped his soul and was like "I see myself in you (affectionate derogatory)" and then gave Riddle his current name. Very "If you have nothing to live for then live for me" this whole situation kinda is for them
But oh god the DRAMA
Sigurd has been King for so long that he doesn't believe things can get better and that the human world just keeps going downhill, so because of his unique position of being so detached from so long he decides that the only way to fix everything is to shake things up
To which "shake things up" means use his power to swap the positions of the real world and hell
And so Riddle has past decided he'd do anything for him, HOWEVER
Sigurd instructs Riddle in the event that he fails, Riddle is to be the one to kill him so he can make sure his soul reincarnates so that Sigurd can have another chance. And YEAH Riddle does it! But by god does he have tangible feelings about it! All of the other undertakers who knew him at this time describe it as if Riddle was never really the same after that
Heck Riddle was so broken up after that that Roen ended up curating a seemingly onesided love where he wished to live domestically with Riddle and make him happy so he'd never look so sad again
Riddle is so devoted to Sigurd's plan that he plays the long game, and orchestrates practically everything, so he can tear Sigurd out of Hayato and see him again
And that whole event is a BUNDLE of devotion and betrayal and angst holy christ
Do you ever spend centuries following the person you care about most, even after they're dead, and everything goes perfectly except by the time you see him again you've also fallen for his reincarnation and his reincarnation's humanity so you have to be the one to end your beloved once more but you also betray your other beloved in the process because you feel as if you should be eternally punished?
God damn, Riddle
Anyways they're married they're divorced they're married again they're having sexual intimacy in secret they're best pals they're soulmates they have tension they have an unexplained scene in front of a mirror where they're hugging🙂
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Ooooh haha Mikamatsu I never get to talk about them
Two in a row?? CRAZY
Okay I bet you're wondering how a certified rarepair could get so many squares
Well, let's begin with where this ship began for me
Anyone who knows me knows I used to end up with a lot of ships that center around the same person, but wouldn't include the third ship in what would make it a triangle (for example, like liking xxc x sl and xxc x xy, but not xy x xxc). Now, however I tend to be more open to that "secret third ship".
All this to say that I sorta entertained the idea when I was already shipping mikalight and matsulight
But anyways. One day I got to thinking about the death note ending (be aware that I wasn't aware at the time that the manga ending was different)
Or, more specifically, an au in which Mikami lived after yellow box (which I am aware now is canon). I had seen the manga panels of how Matsuda felt about Light after all this, so I thought about them both having feelings about Light.
And that created an angsty Mikamatsu au where Matsuda visits Mikami in prison to learn about what he knew about Light at first, so both of them learn about parts of Light they didn’t know through each other, bond over his death, kiss and yeah
That was the gateway, and now they're everything to me
They're perfect for angst, aus where they were roommates during the events in canon or met at the gym. They're perfect for child raising aus and bonding over the same guy
And yes, they would get sexually intimate with the same guy (Light) in my head
Everything I enjoy about them is made up but oh the what ifs oh the possibilities. Throwing Matsuda’s sweetness and Mikami’s devotion into everything
Also if you haven't already or I convinced you...read these fics
This one is Xion's. It's a fairy-tale au and I adore it:
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
And this one is just ah so so sweet man I love it:
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
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And now for the one no one expected!
Ienzo/Xexion x Sephiroth
So you all might be sitting here wondering
Why
Why them? An utter crackship
Well, some of you are aware of a funky au I have that has leagues of lore and worldbuilding and only two fics, the most self indulgent au in my catalog.
That au, is the Twilight Prince au.
What I have learned through fandom is that if you make the situation in which the characters interact, you can make up almost any ship that no one would have thought up otherwise, and you can make it believable by giving them a dynamic.
So, in the business of maybe getting some of you to understand the why, I will explain a bit of the au that no one but my beloved best friend knows about
Now, the aus "Twilight Prince" in question, is Riku from Kingdom Hearts. I had to think up family structures for characters in this au, and so because I love dumb things like this, Xion and I came up with the idea of having the other Rikus as Riku's siblings, and Sephiroth as the current King of the Twilight.
So, yes. One of those "Sephiroth is Riku's dad" aus😂
The next family structure I had to think up was Kairi's. You see, Kairi kingdom hearts is the current young adult queen of Hyrule. She's trying to facilitate peace between Hyrule and the realm of twilight. In the renga fic for the au, I made references to their being war and tensions, so of course I had to figure out how that all came about.
Thus I decided that Ansem the Wise would be Kairi's grandfather, because I decided that, well, he would be my choice for making tensions and the war worse. Through this, I put some structure into the castle staff. Even is head royal scientist and has a secret but not so secret thing going on with Ansem tw. Kairi needed parents. Ienzo is practically the Ansem tw/Even adopted child in kh canon. Ansem tw practically pays high status women to sleep with him until he can produce an heir (Ienzo).
So, long story short. Kairi is Ienzo's test tube baby, Ansem tw is super controlling during Ienzo's short reign as King. Ienzo doesn't really love being King anyways and feels trapped. When Kairi comes of age and is decently prepared he fakes his death and passes the Kingdom on to her (she is aware of this btw)
And so, King Ienzo rebrands himself as Zexion, royal scientist (after splitting for a while and learning more before ending up working his way up through the castle of course).
Now, keep in mind. The people don't know he's the same guy. To most of the people, Zexion isn't incredibly well known. The castle family structure? They're aware by now, but they can't do anything about it. So, they allow Zexion to go on trips to the Twilight Realm on Royal business (or basically, Twili King Sephiroth and Queen Kairi both allow the other to handpick people to send across borders under supervision, and Zexion is there for scientific reasons).
Now, Sephiroth isn't stupid either. He knows Zexion is the presumed dead King Ienzo.
And pretty much what happens is they sorta end up in this will they won’t they relationship where they're passive aggressive to each other but also Sephiroth invites Ienzo to what's practically a private Twili spa and yeah tensions go up and things just...begin for them. Sephiroth is a bit hopelessly attracted, Ienzo is definitely ace and arospec
I love them