Ahhh! Hooray, I’m excited to talk about this.
Firstly, the likely endgame canon ship is Kyouka/Atsushi (and possibly Higuchi/Akutagawa), and I like it (both). They’re cute, and Kyouka and Atsushi in particular bring out each other’s humanity. Higuchi and Akutagawa challenge each other too: Akutagawa at first treats her rather like Dazai treated him, but she will risk everything to save him. I like both these ships, but more of in a passive sense in that I look forward to canon-esque interactions and enjoy them, but don’t like… feel inspired to write for it.
Lucy/Atsushi and Louise/Fitzgerald are also really cute. And I could definitely get behind Gin/Yosano depending on Gin’s age, or Gin/Kyouka.
But, for ships that, like, I will sail no matter what, and will definitely write for even if in canon I only expect platonic canonicity:
Soukoku. Dazai/Chuuya, which I think is the most popular ship? Which isn’t surprising at all. I mean, look at Chuuya’s list of dislikes:
Look if an author states the character dislikes a character they’re gonna have to work closely with, fandom is gonna ship. Especially because Chuuya doesn’t really seem to dislike Dazai–they push and pull at each other, forcing each other to grow.
Plus, Dead Apple, which is canon. It’s a great film on its own as well as fitting into the larger series really well (a rarity for an anime series-based movie), but I mean… Dazai and Chuuya are literally referred to as Snow White and her prince with punching waking them up instead of kissing, and Chuuya trusts Dazai to bring him out of his state of Corruption. And then he rests his head… there. The animators know. :P
And Soukoku is a distinct parallel to my very favorite ship, my OTP: Shin Soukoku. Akutagawa/Atsushi. I know neither of them like each other, but Dazai sees great potential in them working together–and, truthfully, whenever they do work together they force each other to grow.
I’m kind of a sucker for ships where the characters challenge one another…
thereby provoking growth…
are each other’s equals in many ways…
and have a yin/yang aesthetic.
I won’t get terribly into where I think their individual arcs are going because @linkspooky is going to write a meta that will touch on this, but I definitely expect shin soukoku endgame–but in terms of platonic partnership. Which is fine. I’m just a sucker for their interactions. And if I wanna imagine it as more than that in fanfic, I shall.
*removes gloves, activates Corruption*
I will not make a joke about this I will not make a joke about this
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