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in the same way that tennis is about sanada/yukimura/kirihara/ryoma to me, detective conan is about akai/shinichi/haibara/amuro... it really do be three deeply entangled people from the elite killer clique villain organisation and the protag. eventually i will bite the bullet and draw up a conan agenda map like my tennis one but for now i will explain my core vision... not necessarily all the ships i like the most (some are in fact landmines) not necessarily romantic ships but these dynamics are at the centre of my conceptualisation of detective conan as a story and as narrativeshipper that means they are fundamental to all other things. To Me! so here is a summarised 1140shipping manifesto... ok i said summarised when i was typing this up but i just checked and it's 4.5k long so uh.... anyway:
AKAI/AMURO
ok. Well. . . rivals to enemies (under different identities) to worse enemies (under different identities again) to reluctant allies (under different identities again again) to ??? is a relationship trajectory so precisely calculated to kill me. this is the most クソデカ感情 ship in the world i simply do not have enough time or space to explain the narrative basis of my conan otp but i will try to be brief (1/348759438943843394):
BLACK ORG ERA RIVALRY
according to haibara, rye and bourbon were bitter rivals and already did not get along when they were black org agents together even before everything with scotch, by which i presume she means bourbon did not get along with rye, because amuro has been trying to pick fights with everyone and their dog since childhood. it's definitely easy to see how their personalities would have clashed lmfao and amuro's competitive ass has never taken kindly to people who are stronger than him. despite that, they seemed to have pretty good team synergy since they were partnered on at least two missions, so i guess that means they worked well together anyway, and even in the present timeline they make an incredibly effective team despite amuro's even more intense hate...
this was probably actually amuro's most positive era of Feelings About Akai because it was only a personal/petty dislike at this stage, i think this was his maximum tsundere moment. having a stupid crush you refuse to admit to yourself on your onesided rival who shows little interest in you in return is so good though!! to quote one of ino-san's djs: "in the middle of the irritation, surely, there was a single ray of longing."
tbh i don't think rye and bourbon fucked in my personal canon timeline for various reasons redacted for length but the art is so good and sexy tho (but also i think it's literally sexier of rye to refuse to fuck bourbon eg: <this>, also <this>). too bad Everything Changed When Scotch Died...
THE SCOTCH INCIDENT
the logical assumption is that akai lied that he was the one who killed scotch in order to preserve his own cover since he wasn't sure if amuro was also a double agent, but he says later that he always suspected bourbon, and also even once he finds out amuro's real identity he still doesn't try to clear his name at all even though it would obviously improve their relations as two people working towards the same ostensible goal of taking down the black org. i think he is maintaining the lie because he wants to spare amuro the burden of knowing that it was actually him who inadvertently caused his best friend's death. i think akai would rather amuro direct that hatred at akai, who can handle it, than at himself. which is so ummm [no words] i love unconditional sacrifice… akai is a really kind person.
IDENTITY THEFT IS THE MOST ROMANTIC THING IN THE UNIVERSE
amuro is so obsessed with killing akai that he straight up refused to believe that kir had actually managed to kill akai on the basis that nobody can kill akai except him, so in order to test this theory he decided to disguise himself as akai and go around akai's fbi colleagues to test their reactions. this is obviously great for me as identity theft lover :') and okiya recognised amuro right away even in disguise. also the fact that okiya is initially introduced as a possible candidate for bourbon's real identity makes it reciprocal identity theft :'')
plus okiya/amuro is so so so funny.... the layers and layers of I Know That You Know That I Know and plausible deniability except amuro loses patience with okiya's paper thin disguise very quickly while okiya is happy to extend the farce of pretending not to be akai infinitely long... once again hair-trigger temper 0s and patient but teasing 1s we love to see it. <ordinary engineering grad student x ordinary cafe barista!>
THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY IS MY COWORKER
technically akai and amuro are on the same side but amuro always falls back on the flimsy excuse of jurisdictional tensions between japan's psb and america's fbi to clash with akai anyway... but sometimes they do be engaging in clenched-jaw cooperation, usually under pressure from conan in some life-or-death situation and i love to see the flawlessly-executed teamwork because they are both super competent and they have the history and knowledge of each other's skillsets despite the antipathy :')
???
akam is literally mostttttttt perfect ideal <1 x 0 hostageshipping dynamix> with bitchy tsundere 0 amuro trying so so hard to kill cool unfazeable generous 1 akai and failing every time because he loses all rational thinking ability as soon as he sees akai, and akai has both the patience and the strength to handle him. i think that even though amuro's inability to beat akai despite not lacking the stats on paper makes him hate akai even more, there is also a comfort in knowing deep down that this is something that won't change the way everything else has changed... rn his desire to kill akai is one of his fundamental driving motivations i would say even one of his reasons for living, and so if he actually did manage to kill akai what would he have left?
i said this is a ksdkkj ship but it's really just amuro->akai that is ksdkkj, i think akai's feelings about amuro are quite simple. eventually amuro (or well at this stage he will be back to being furuya rei) will realise the truth and run out of fight and he will be so tired and akai will be there and the longing that has been underneath the hatred since their rye/bourbon era will reveal itself again. it's real true love!!! always be happy forever into the future!!! and having a lot of forcible unrepression sex. akai literally is the virgo venus fixed mars S in SM stands for service スパダリ mean dom because he knows it's what amuro wants but won't admit in question. ultimate sexual romantic visual everything compatibility!!!! i really like fated to meet but have to put in effort to make it work... when they finally fit together it's going to be soooooo amazing but even outside of the scotch incident they have seriously clashing worldviews (akai loyal to people, amuro loyal to ideals // akai's response to losing loved ones being to protect what he has left and build on his relationships, amuro's response to losing loved ones being to isolate himself from others and cut out everything vulnerable and sentimental) plus their relationship will have to be long-distance... but it's ok :) love wins.
ughhh this is already so long but i have so much i want to say i will probably have to write up a separate manifesto explaining everything in more detail... but first i need to get my hands on the official akam fanbook for canon review purposes... - average akam enjoyer
literally too many sacred texts to list as this is like THE most popular conan ship but here are a few i remembered to bookmark... i was going to include translations but i was struggling too hard to format them neatly so i ended up leaving them out lmk if you want any of these tl'd though:
AKAI/HAIBARA
classic 2 people who both know the same 3rd person better except akai was only dating akemi so he could get to haibara as leverage to infiltrate the black org (except then he fell in love with akemi for real) and his cover getting blown directly led to akemi's death. nonetheless, the two of them are all they have left of miyano akemi in this world. what can i say i love griefshipping!! haibara doesn't know this any of this yet, since akai was under a false identity when they were in the black org together... i wonder if she will blame akai the way she blamed shinichi when she finds out? akai is certainly blaming himself enough for both of them though, he really meant it when he said he would protect haibara at the cost of his own life. he will look out for haibara for her sister's sake forever...
meanwhile haibara still regards him post resurrection as okiya subaru with deep suspicion because she can sense the black org killing intent coming off him sometimes and she's literally convinced he's the killer. and for some reason okiya does absolutely nothing to counter this and in fact makes it worse by speaking exclusively in ominous and vague metaphorical monologues punctuated with villainous lens flashes. idk but if i were a self-appointed bodyguard of an extremely mistrustful and reluctant ward i would simply not say things that make it sound like i am planning to murder her and dismember her body. like does it not seem like it would be easier to do the bodyguarding thing if the person you are trying to bodyguard didn't think YOU were the threat that needed to be neutralised. though haibara's extreme suspicion of okiya while shinichi is like [sweatdropping] ahaha noooo he's fine Source Just Trust Me Dude because he can't blow akai's cover and haibara is like Get rid of this man. he is going to kill me. you are going to come over one day to see me and i will have been brutally murdered and it will be YOUR FAULT is literally so funny... not to make light of my beloved onepick's legitimate paranoia as she is the only bitch in this house who actually cares about maintaining her cover since she apprehends the very real threat of the black org killing her if they find out her true identity.
i also want to mention that the tendency to launch into disturbing dark humour monologue is something both akai and haibara share, which is cute... akemi's beloveds trait. anyway they aren't in love but if akai ends up dying to save haibara i won't be surprised. i have yet to see any akai/haibara i agree with but i'm sure it's out there somewhere, i just have no interest in looking for it because i am sure to be landmined if i do.
AKAI/SHINICHI
silverbulletshipping... i love a relationship built on telepathic communication via smirk emojis. they really get along so well and work as a super effective and organic team it's very cute. the silver bullet to silver bullet connection! akai treats shinichi as an equal and takes his intellect and advice seriously, even when he only knew him as conan, i am still very heart touched by akai letting shinichi plan out the entire circumstances surrounding his fake death. the only time akai brought up shinichi's youth as a reason to doubt him was actually just part of a greater gambit they'd already worked out together. the show kind of generally disregards the sanctity of a ボウヤ moment by having any random oneshot mob character call conan ボウヤ but it's still special when akai does it... TO ME.
being narratively positioned as the twin downfalls of the black org is a relationship so personal, i wouldn't say akai is a deuteragonist because he doesn't appear in the story enough but he shares a narrative function with shinichi AND plays a mentor role to him so what am i (narrativeshipper and mentorshipper) gonna do, say no? i think what i like most about akashin is how chill and accommodating akai is, i like the ease of their dynamic and the natural chemistry in the way they clicked right away. i don't have that much to say about silverbulletshipping because there's not really any tension here and i kind of need tension to live but i might have further thoughts once i watch the scarlet bullet... it WAS very funny when okiya figured out conan's true identity as shinichi and the show framed it in the most terror inducing way possible with dramatic closeups and evil lens-flashing smirks tho.
SHINICHI/HAIBARA
THE MOST ROMANTIC NONROMANTIC WORKMARRIAGE EVERRRR i don't even ship this in an actually shippy way but shinshi was my favourite conan dynamic until i got ohko'd by akam T__T i love how unquestioningly they have each other's backs... he failed to save her sister! she created the drug that destroyed his body! but despite that they trust each other on a level nobody else can access because they understand each other so deeply, both in terms of fundamental motivations and the unique experience of having to cosplay kindergarteners due to deaging pill. the near-telepathic way they function as a team and how they never miss a chance to wryly snipe at each other for attributes they know they share, like the desire to do everything alone to prevent others from getting involved and possibly hurt, is so good every time.
i love that haibara keeps shinichi humble lmao he severely needs it, she's literally 90% of his impulse control because she's the better compartmentaliser out of the two of them so she takes it upon herself to keep them both accountable and meeting their spiritual kpis and not getting themselves and their loved ones murdered gruesomely by the black org. and also i love shinichi's coolly heroically protective gestures towards haibara that she accepts with grace and concealed gratitude, every day of my life i think about him smashing through a bus window to rescue her from a bomb explosion she'd resigned herself to dying in for the greater good and telling her not to run away from her fate, which is literally so mindblowingly romantic (in a nonromantic sense. IF YOU KNOW YOU KNOW).
now haibara IS also in love with shinichi but that's different, the workmarriage 相棒s is totally separate from unrequited haibara->shinichi which is just this like intense and private and beautiful thing haibara will hold inside her forever neatly compartmentalised away. haibara would never ever interfere with ran's happiness because she cares too deeply about ran, and she won't admit it but she wants to see shinichi happy too, so shinichi will never find out about it. and it will always be a source of pain to her as well, because shinichi is still the person who did not save her sister, no matter how she feels about him. my shinshi is simultaneously a perfect fully reciprocal partnership and a severely imbalanced unrequited love and neither of these dynamics interfere with each other at all.
some of my sacred texts:
it's partly because amuro needs to manipulate people or he dies, but i think the key difference between silverbulletshipping and guyswholieshipping is that akai and shinichi trust each other's skills and also trust each other as people, since they have more aligned ethical codes and ways of thinking, whereas amuro and shinichi trust each other's skills but don't trust each other as people (or at least shinichi does not trust amuro! amuro knows the kind of person shinichi is and will leverage it against him), due to their deep differences in ethical codes. amuro is completely ends-justify-means and he's willing to do all kinds of cruel and terrible things to serve the greater good, while shinichi believes all lives have value and people are worth more than just tools to be used (... while akai is less concerned about ideals and more concerned about the people he loves, but this is much closer to shinichi's worldview than amuro's). so while shinichi understands why amuro's ruthlessly utilitarian mindset causes him to act in ways that harm shinichi's loved ones, i don't think he forgives amuro for it... it's still always going to be a point of tension and incompatibility between them. and this is something amuro accepts as a necessary sacrifice too.
it has not escaped my notice that there are ALSO 1s and 0s in here kudo shinICHI furuya REI. also shinichi instantly starting to call amuro "zero" as soon as he learns that was amuro's childhood nickname is so kdsjfgksjdfksdgksf amuro doesn't know that conan is shinichi (yet) but he does know that conan is behind mori's deductions so that's only one small step away from understanding everything...
i haven't really looked for art because i'm not that interested outside of an academic pursuit / unless akai is there but it seems that the popular order is actually amuro/shinichi which is just. YOU ARE SO WRONG... THIS IS SO SICK AND TWISTEDDD... however i DID see <this art> which really creates an image that makes me think. like i said... 0s and 1s...
HAIBARA/AMURO
narrative parallels... narrative parallels... black org traitors whose closest loved ones died in situations connected with silver bullets who they blame for those deaths And they were beautiful fashionable picky cats living under false identities. i think haibara's ethical code also aligns (or aligned, pre-conan and detective boys defrosting) most closely with amuro's--haibara's scientific curiosity outweighed (to a point) her unease about her research being used to murder people, while amuro's dedication to protecting japan outweighs any moral qualm a normal person would have about killing/manipulating/etc... it's about what you are willing to sacrifice for an ideal. but haibara has started to let people in now so she has specific personal loyalties she wants to protect, whereas amuro is still strictly keeping everyone and everything at arm's length.
i saved this section for last because it's truly the fundamental core of my thesis that ties everything together:
IT REALLY IS LIKE THAT, the two roads diverging in that haibara and shinichi got workmarried but amuro set out to kill akai (but they'll get married for real later anyway so it's not that different in the end... The Illusion Of Free Choice) also the fact that neither shinichi nor akai are actually at fault but grief makes people irrational... haibara is soooo much better at compartmentalising her feelings than amuro though, even though amuro is really trying to come off like a master compartmentaliser. but i actually do think amuro is good at compartmentalising since he's competently puppeteering three identities at the same time, it's just that how he feels about akai is so intense and illogical that it disrupts the entire process, whereas haibara lets nothing through. amuro is unstoppable force, haibara is immoveable object and THAT IS WHY amuro needs someone he can relentlessly throw himself against who won't give an inch until he exhausts himself enough to let his guard down (AKAI) whereas haibara needs someone who will relentlessly bulldoze her until she gives in and lets her guard down (SERA).
... anyway i can't explain how much the fact that amuro was childhood friends with akemi and close with/looked up to elena has impacted my psyche, the layers it adds to amuro telling haibara she resembles her mother which at first seemed like a thinly veiled threat considering the black org's hand in elena's death but in fact he meant it with great respect ): anyway i think so far amuro and haibara have only really interacted on the bell tree express where haibara was actually kaito and most other times they are about to be in the vicinity of each other haibara will actively seek to leave the situation before they interact due to the whole he tried to kill her that one time thing but I Just Felt That--
also i deeply want my anime het 2pick tradition to continue so i really really need their first legit interaction to be amuro getting thrown off a long flight of stairs in front of haibara -> haibara instantly goes to help him and get him out of harm's way despite everything -> haibara tries to administer some emergency field first aid -> amuro remembers elena and/or akemi.
also i want to note that this ship actually landmines me because it's Not Like That except for how i understand it in terms of NARRATIVE, they are absolutely not fucking because amuro is a non-negotiable 0 and the task of topping should not be imposed on haibara's maidenly sensibilities and also it's literally just not like that between them. so the order is immaterial because it's just not like that.
but 1140 is such a nice ship name!! i (khr fan) love when they got numbers in there... akai shuICHI kudo shinICHI miyano SHIho furuya REI <3 speaking of numbers my scale assignments are:very easy very balanced world peace
AKAI/AMURO
ok. Well. . . rivals to enemies (under different identities) to worse enemies (under different identities again) to reluctant allies (under different identities again again) to ??? is a relationship trajectory so precisely calculated to kill me. this is the most クソデカ感情 ship in the world i simply do not have enough time or space to explain the narrative basis of my conan otp but i will try to be brief (1/348759438943843394):BLACK ORG ERA RIVALRY
according to haibara, rye and bourbon were bitter rivals and already did not get along when they were black org agents together even before everything with scotch, by which i presume she means bourbon did not get along with rye, because amuro has been trying to pick fights with everyone and their dog since childhood. it's definitely easy to see how their personalities would have clashed lmfao and amuro's competitive ass has never taken kindly to people who are stronger than him. despite that, they seemed to have pretty good team synergy since they were partnered on at least two missions, so i guess that means they worked well together anyway, and even in the present timeline they make an incredibly effective team despite amuro's even more intense hate...
this was probably actually amuro's most positive era of Feelings About Akai because it was only a personal/petty dislike at this stage, i think this was his maximum tsundere moment. having a stupid crush you refuse to admit to yourself on your onesided rival who shows little interest in you in return is so good though!! to quote one of ino-san's djs: "in the middle of the irritation, surely, there was a single ray of longing."
tbh i don't think rye and bourbon fucked in my personal canon timeline for various reasons redacted for length but the art is so good and sexy tho (but also i think it's literally sexier of rye to refuse to fuck bourbon eg: <this>, also <this>). too bad Everything Changed When Scotch Died...
THE SCOTCH INCIDENT
the logical assumption is that akai lied that he was the one who killed scotch in order to preserve his own cover since he wasn't sure if amuro was also a double agent, but he says later that he always suspected bourbon, and also even once he finds out amuro's real identity he still doesn't try to clear his name at all even though it would obviously improve their relations as two people working towards the same ostensible goal of taking down the black org. i think he is maintaining the lie because he wants to spare amuro the burden of knowing that it was actually him who inadvertently caused his best friend's death. i think akai would rather amuro direct that hatred at akai, who can handle it, than at himself. which is so ummm [no words] i love unconditional sacrifice… akai is a really kind person.
amuro actually knows that scotch killed himself because he observed the pattern of blood spatter but believes that akai forced scotch to do it. i don’t know how the part where akai was acting like he was the one who killed scotch fits into this theory but amuro really doesn’t need logical justification to hate akai, it’s the confirmation bias at work… i think that amuro has already connected the dots subconsciously and deep down he knows it’s his own fault and not akai’s because he’s way too smart not to, but it’s easier and less painful to blame akai and shift all his grief and hatred and rage onto akai, especially when akai welcomes it and is encouraging amuro to do so because he knows this about amuro and wants to protect him from himself.
IDENTITY THEFT IS THE MOST ROMANTIC THING IN THE UNIVERSE
amuro is so obsessed with killing akai that he straight up refused to believe that kir had actually managed to kill akai on the basis that nobody can kill akai except him, so in order to test this theory he decided to disguise himself as akai and go around akai's fbi colleagues to test their reactions. this is obviously great for me as identity theft lover :') and okiya recognised amuro right away even in disguise. also the fact that okiya is initially introduced as a possible candidate for bourbon's real identity makes it reciprocal identity theft :'')
plus okiya/amuro is so so so funny.... the layers and layers of I Know That You Know That I Know and plausible deniability except amuro loses patience with okiya's paper thin disguise very quickly while okiya is happy to extend the farce of pretending not to be akai infinitely long... once again hair-trigger temper 0s and patient but teasing 1s we love to see it. <ordinary engineering grad student x ordinary cafe barista!>
THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY IS MY COWORKER
technically akai and amuro are on the same side but amuro always falls back on the flimsy excuse of jurisdictional tensions between japan's psb and america's fbi to clash with akai anyway... but sometimes they do be engaging in clenched-jaw cooperation, usually under pressure from conan in some life-or-death situation and i love to see the flawlessly-executed teamwork because they are both super competent and they have the history and knowledge of each other's skillsets despite the antipathy :')
???
akam is literally mostttttttt perfect ideal <1 x 0 hostageshipping dynamix> with bitchy tsundere 0 amuro trying so so hard to kill cool unfazeable generous 1 akai and failing every time because he loses all rational thinking ability as soon as he sees akai, and akai has both the patience and the strength to handle him. i think that even though amuro's inability to beat akai despite not lacking the stats on paper makes him hate akai even more, there is also a comfort in knowing deep down that this is something that won't change the way everything else has changed... rn his desire to kill akai is one of his fundamental driving motivations i would say even one of his reasons for living, and so if he actually did manage to kill akai what would he have left?
i said this is a ksdkkj ship but it's really just amuro->akai that is ksdkkj, i think akai's feelings about amuro are quite simple. eventually amuro (or well at this stage he will be back to being furuya rei) will realise the truth and run out of fight and he will be so tired and akai will be there and the longing that has been underneath the hatred since their rye/bourbon era will reveal itself again. it's real true love!!! always be happy forever into the future!!! and having a lot of forcible unrepression sex. akai literally is the virgo venus fixed mars S in SM stands for service スパダリ mean dom because he knows it's what amuro wants but won't admit in question. ultimate sexual romantic visual everything compatibility!!!! i really like fated to meet but have to put in effort to make it work... when they finally fit together it's going to be soooooo amazing but even outside of the scotch incident they have seriously clashing worldviews (akai loyal to people, amuro loyal to ideals // akai's response to losing loved ones being to protect what he has left and build on his relationships, amuro's response to losing loved ones being to isolate himself from others and cut out everything vulnerable and sentimental) plus their relationship will have to be long-distance... but it's ok :) love wins.
ughhh this is already so long but i have so much i want to say i will probably have to write up a separate manifesto explaining everything in more detail... but first i need to get my hands on the official akam fanbook for canon review purposes... - average akam enjoyer
literally too many sacred texts to list as this is like THE most popular conan ship but here are a few i remembered to bookmark... i was going to include translations but i was struggling too hard to format them neatly so i ended up leaving them out lmk if you want any of these tl'd though:
- ultimate akam sacred text
- THE TAILS_GETS_TROLLED.PNG I UNDERWENT READING THIS AT MIDNIGHT CANNOT BE QUANTIFIED... the artist said in their dvd commentary they wanted to write love without romance and it really....... yeah. there are no words.
- pwp can also be sacred text (links to tl)
- this may be entirely porn but it hits like every single one of my fave akam tropes... identity fuckery, cool and fully in control akai who knows what amuro wants even though amuro doesn't want to admit it and is generous about giving it to him and also ignores all of amuro's threats x furious desperate hateristic tsundere amuro, akai suddenly being unexpectedly gentle with amuro who hates it and wishes he would be rough again because it's too close to emotional vulnerability, amuro trying to convince himself that he doesn't want this, zero emotional resolution...
- also the porn is very good too
- it's gusari (links to tl)
- Pain
- ultimate okiamu sacred text (+<tl here>)
- perfect cute/fun premise with the detective boys but hidden layer of meaning to the light conversation gets brought out and nosedives into anguish which is my favourite story progression always... plus sxc kiss scene + the emotional turmoil is left unresolved on just the right note :') akai who won't actively obstruct amuro's search for the truth because he respects amuro, but who also wishes to delay the inevitable as long as possible so he can keep bearing the weight of scotch's death for amuro...
- more perfect okiamu interax
- i love the moments where their ordinary grad student / ordinary barista facades slip just for a moment and they recognise it in each other... perfect IKYKIK energy in this comic
- rye/bourbon flashback -> akai/furuya present
- i was trying to explain the complicated way i feel about this one to mich over call, the rye/bourbon half of this is soooooooo hot and sacred text especially for violence/intimacy fuckers because the wound care is framed exactly like sex... but the akai/furuya half is just ok, it's cute and i always love the idea that when amuro is exhausted enough to accidentally unrepress he instinctively feels safe around akai because his body is more honest than his conscious mind, but compared to the extreme intensity of the first half it kind of pales a bit. also i'm really in the business for more anguish
- bad end
- it literally is like this tho... amuro THINKS he wants to kill akai but if he actually does it will fuck him up so bad. even if he doesn't know the truth about scotch
- <this> is exactly how the emotional fallout from the scotch incident plays out in my mind
- <truelove endgame>... TT
- <this comic> was what baited me into akam back when i had only just met akai and i was still like 500 eps away from meeting amuro... love to see amuro needing violence to get hard and akai knowing this even before amuro realises and generously providing it to him w/o amuro needing to ask
- the biggest sacred text is literally CANON ITSELF, i wish there was a properly subbed upload of the ferris wheel fistfight aka greatest fanservice bait in history or even the guns aimed at each other standoff scene :'( <this> and <this> are good summaries tho
AKAI/HAIBARA
classic 2 people who both know the same 3rd person better except akai was only dating akemi so he could get to haibara as leverage to infiltrate the black org (except then he fell in love with akemi for real) and his cover getting blown directly led to akemi's death. nonetheless, the two of them are all they have left of miyano akemi in this world. what can i say i love griefshipping!! haibara doesn't know this any of this yet, since akai was under a false identity when they were in the black org together... i wonder if she will blame akai the way she blamed shinichi when she finds out? akai is certainly blaming himself enough for both of them though, he really meant it when he said he would protect haibara at the cost of his own life. he will look out for haibara for her sister's sake forever...meanwhile haibara still regards him post resurrection as okiya subaru with deep suspicion because she can sense the black org killing intent coming off him sometimes and she's literally convinced he's the killer. and for some reason okiya does absolutely nothing to counter this and in fact makes it worse by speaking exclusively in ominous and vague metaphorical monologues punctuated with villainous lens flashes. idk but if i were a self-appointed bodyguard of an extremely mistrustful and reluctant ward i would simply not say things that make it sound like i am planning to murder her and dismember her body. like does it not seem like it would be easier to do the bodyguarding thing if the person you are trying to bodyguard didn't think YOU were the threat that needed to be neutralised. though haibara's extreme suspicion of okiya while shinichi is like [sweatdropping] ahaha noooo he's fine Source Just Trust Me Dude because he can't blow akai's cover and haibara is like Get rid of this man. he is going to kill me. you are going to come over one day to see me and i will have been brutally murdered and it will be YOUR FAULT is literally so funny... not to make light of my beloved onepick's legitimate paranoia as she is the only bitch in this house who actually cares about maintaining her cover since she apprehends the very real threat of the black org killing her if they find out her true identity.
i also want to mention that the tendency to launch into disturbing dark humour monologue is something both akai and haibara share, which is cute... akemi's beloveds trait. anyway they aren't in love but if akai ends up dying to save haibara i won't be surprised. i have yet to see any akai/haibara i agree with but i'm sure it's out there somewhere, i just have no interest in looking for it because i am sure to be landmined if i do.
AKAI/SHINICHI
silverbulletshipping... i love a relationship built on telepathic communication via smirk emojis. they really get along so well and work as a super effective and organic team it's very cute. the silver bullet to silver bullet connection! akai treats shinichi as an equal and takes his intellect and advice seriously, even when he only knew him as conan, i am still very heart touched by akai letting shinichi plan out the entire circumstances surrounding his fake death. the only time akai brought up shinichi's youth as a reason to doubt him was actually just part of a greater gambit they'd already worked out together. the show kind of generally disregards the sanctity of a ボウヤ moment by having any random oneshot mob character call conan ボウヤ but it's still special when akai does it... TO ME.being narratively positioned as the twin downfalls of the black org is a relationship so personal, i wouldn't say akai is a deuteragonist because he doesn't appear in the story enough but he shares a narrative function with shinichi AND plays a mentor role to him so what am i (narrativeshipper and mentorshipper) gonna do, say no? i think what i like most about akashin is how chill and accommodating akai is, i like the ease of their dynamic and the natural chemistry in the way they clicked right away. i don't have that much to say about silverbulletshipping because there's not really any tension here and i kind of need tension to live but i might have further thoughts once i watch the scarlet bullet... it WAS very funny when okiya figured out conan's true identity as shinichi and the show framed it in the most terror inducing way possible with dramatic closeups and evil lens-flashing smirks tho.
SHINICHI/HAIBARA
THE MOST ROMANTIC NONROMANTIC WORKMARRIAGE EVERRRR i don't even ship this in an actually shippy way but shinshi was my favourite conan dynamic until i got ohko'd by akam T__T i love how unquestioningly they have each other's backs... he failed to save her sister! she created the drug that destroyed his body! but despite that they trust each other on a level nobody else can access because they understand each other so deeply, both in terms of fundamental motivations and the unique experience of having to cosplay kindergarteners due to deaging pill. the near-telepathic way they function as a team and how they never miss a chance to wryly snipe at each other for attributes they know they share, like the desire to do everything alone to prevent others from getting involved and possibly hurt, is so good every time.i love that haibara keeps shinichi humble lmao he severely needs it, she's literally 90% of his impulse control because she's the better compartmentaliser out of the two of them so she takes it upon herself to keep them both accountable and meeting their spiritual kpis and not getting themselves and their loved ones murdered gruesomely by the black org. and also i love shinichi's coolly heroically protective gestures towards haibara that she accepts with grace and concealed gratitude, every day of my life i think about him smashing through a bus window to rescue her from a bomb explosion she'd resigned herself to dying in for the greater good and telling her not to run away from her fate, which is literally so mindblowingly romantic (in a nonromantic sense. IF YOU KNOW YOU KNOW).
now haibara IS also in love with shinichi but that's different, the workmarriage 相棒s is totally separate from unrequited haibara->shinichi which is just this like intense and private and beautiful thing haibara will hold inside her forever neatly compartmentalised away. haibara would never ever interfere with ran's happiness because she cares too deeply about ran, and she won't admit it but she wants to see shinichi happy too, so shinichi will never find out about it. and it will always be a source of pain to her as well, because shinichi is still the person who did not save her sister, no matter how she feels about him. my shinshi is simultaneously a perfect fully reciprocal partnership and a severely imbalanced unrequited love and neither of these dynamics interfere with each other at all.
some of my sacred texts:
- MOST PERFECT <coworkershipping + haibara's unrequited feelings> comic T__T
- i seriously seriously love dialogue that means one thing to the person hearing it and another thing to the person saying it / us as the audience knowing what it means... when haibara agrees that she definitely won't tell shinichi she isn't just talking about the answer to the problem!!!
- i also agree shinichi has no sense of personal distance, i always think of <this anime cap> where they're wrapped around e/o, so cute...
- <fancy dress superspy partners>
SHINICHI/AMURO
i love guys who lie so much. and guys who know that the other guy is lying. and guys who keep lying even though they know the other guy knows they are lying. they have a really weirdly antagonistic-but-not relationship... like akai, amuro unquestioningly believes in shinichi's judgement and intellect and can openly discuss black org business with shinichi in the middle of cafe poirot, but amuro also won't blink before framing mori for terrorism in order to force shinichi into cooperating with him in finding the true culprit.it's partly because amuro needs to manipulate people or he dies, but i think the key difference between silverbulletshipping and guyswholieshipping is that akai and shinichi trust each other's skills and also trust each other as people, since they have more aligned ethical codes and ways of thinking, whereas amuro and shinichi trust each other's skills but don't trust each other as people (or at least shinichi does not trust amuro! amuro knows the kind of person shinichi is and will leverage it against him), due to their deep differences in ethical codes. amuro is completely ends-justify-means and he's willing to do all kinds of cruel and terrible things to serve the greater good, while shinichi believes all lives have value and people are worth more than just tools to be used (... while akai is less concerned about ideals and more concerned about the people he loves, but this is much closer to shinichi's worldview than amuro's). so while shinichi understands why amuro's ruthlessly utilitarian mindset causes him to act in ways that harm shinichi's loved ones, i don't think he forgives amuro for it... it's still always going to be a point of tension and incompatibility between them. and this is something amuro accepts as a necessary sacrifice too.
it has not escaped my notice that there are ALSO 1s and 0s in here kudo shinICHI furuya REI. also shinichi instantly starting to call amuro "zero" as soon as he learns that was amuro's childhood nickname is so kdsjfgksjdfksdgksf amuro doesn't know that conan is shinichi (yet) but he does know that conan is behind mori's deductions so that's only one small step away from understanding everything...
i haven't really looked for art because i'm not that interested outside of an academic pursuit / unless akai is there but it seems that the popular order is actually amuro/shinichi which is just. YOU ARE SO WRONG... THIS IS SO SICK AND TWISTEDDD... however i DID see <this art> which really creates an image that makes me think. like i said... 0s and 1s...
HAIBARA/AMURO
narrative parallels... narrative parallels... black org traitors whose closest loved ones died in situations connected with silver bullets who they blame for those deaths And they were beautiful fashionable picky cats living under false identities. i think haibara's ethical code also aligns (or aligned, pre-conan and detective boys defrosting) most closely with amuro's--haibara's scientific curiosity outweighed (to a point) her unease about her research being used to murder people, while amuro's dedication to protecting japan outweighs any moral qualm a normal person would have about killing/manipulating/etc... it's about what you are willing to sacrifice for an ideal. but haibara has started to let people in now so she has specific personal loyalties she wants to protect, whereas amuro is still strictly keeping everyone and everything at arm's length.i saved this section for last because it's truly the fundamental core of my thesis that ties everything together:
- haibara: why didn't you save my sister? someone with your deduction skills--
- amuro: why did you let him die? someone as skilled as you--
IT REALLY IS LIKE THAT, the two roads diverging in that haibara and shinichi got workmarried but amuro set out to kill akai (but they'll get married for real later anyway so it's not that different in the end... The Illusion Of Free Choice) also the fact that neither shinichi nor akai are actually at fault but grief makes people irrational... haibara is soooo much better at compartmentalising her feelings than amuro though, even though amuro is really trying to come off like a master compartmentaliser. but i actually do think amuro is good at compartmentalising since he's competently puppeteering three identities at the same time, it's just that how he feels about akai is so intense and illogical that it disrupts the entire process, whereas haibara lets nothing through. amuro is unstoppable force, haibara is immoveable object and THAT IS WHY amuro needs someone he can relentlessly throw himself against who won't give an inch until he exhausts himself enough to let his guard down (AKAI) whereas haibara needs someone who will relentlessly bulldoze her until she gives in and lets her guard down (SERA).
... anyway i can't explain how much the fact that amuro was childhood friends with akemi and close with/looked up to elena has impacted my psyche, the layers it adds to amuro telling haibara she resembles her mother which at first seemed like a thinly veiled threat considering the black org's hand in elena's death but in fact he meant it with great respect ): anyway i think so far amuro and haibara have only really interacted on the bell tree express where haibara was actually kaito and most other times they are about to be in the vicinity of each other haibara will actively seek to leave the situation before they interact due to the whole he tried to kill her that one time thing but I Just Felt That--
also i deeply want my anime het 2pick tradition to continue so i really really need their first legit interaction to be amuro getting thrown off a long flight of stairs in front of haibara -> haibara instantly goes to help him and get him out of harm's way despite everything -> haibara tries to administer some emergency field first aid -> amuro remembers elena and/or akemi.
also i want to note that this ship actually landmines me because it's Not Like That except for how i understand it in terms of NARRATIVE, they are absolutely not fucking because amuro is a non-negotiable 0 and the task of topping should not be imposed on haibara's maidenly sensibilities and also it's literally just not like that between them. so the order is immaterial because it's just not like that.
THE END
ok originally i concluded this post with a section about 3p combinations but then i decided i wanted to make a separate post about akam triangulations which would cover substantially the same ground so... i'll save that for there. anyway here's my <1104 coworkers> sacred image by the original artist who coined the term 1140組 (ok they said 1104 because they're an amuro/haibara shipper but they're wrong about it because amuro/haibara does not exist)but 1140 is such a nice ship name!! i (khr fan) love when they got numbers in there... akai shuICHI kudo shinICHI miyano SHIho furuya REI <3 speaking of numbers my scale assignments are:
- akai - 1
- shinichi - 1
- haibara - 0
- amuro - 0
