this story ends in light

this is not a post about final fantasy in general, this is very specifically a compilation post of ff7 fmvs i have recently enjoyed(?) as a guy who has never played a single second of any final fantasy in my life (although my question still stands). i have read about a million words of ff7 yaoi though! all over a couple weeks back in october! i don't know what came over me either. and then i watched advent children and understood nothing <3 i don't know who half the cast is and i couldn't tell you anything about the plot except for the parts that involve cloud getting impaled by huge swords, but one thing about me is that i love elite military academies and superpowers and fucked up enemies and people dying when killed and people not dying when killed and DOOM. so i will now proceed to make bold assertions about ship dynamics in a canon i don't actually know while reviewing another set of moving images.

( who else up never being a memory )

congratulations to arc v for winning the #1 toxic ex i am most unable to break up with award for the 6th year in a row. as i have my statutory interpretation final due in a couple days i figured it was about time i followed through on all my rageful/despairing/miserable tweets over the past few years about how i could have done arc v better so i am going to explain my vision of how arc v's plot SHOULD have gone, which is objectively the correct way as i guarantee i have spent longer thinking about arc v than the arc v writing team. i am operating off my 5 year old fury and bewilderment skewed memory of s2/s3 so i can't say for sure that i remembered everything in the original plot accurately but it was bad so i don't think it deserves accuracy anyway.

we are going to keep s1 because s1 slayed, and start diverging from canon from s2 onwards:


SEASON 2

SYNCHRO DIMENSION

i'm okay with most of the events that happened in synchro, but i'd focus more on really questioning and digging into yuya's whole duel philosophy because duelling for entertainment takes on such a dark aspect in the friendship cup since the audience is indeed very entertained by spectacularly violent duels, and their complacency with the system can't be shifted with the Duels4Smiles philosophy yuya inherited from yuto alone. because they are smiling! they love brutality! idk/c how exactly this would be resolved but i want to see yuya grapple with how to genuinely reach the synchro residents and make them understand that their society is deeply fucked up and needs to change, while trying to stay true to his belief that duelling should be a instrument for giving others joy. entrenched systems of material inequality can't be fixed with jokes and emotional upliftment (and 5ds literally did manage to tackle this exact topic even via card games so there's no reason why arc v can't address it properly), i want yuya to realise that ideals are not enough to translate into concrete action and that yuto was literally a rebel soldier and the smiles thing was contextual and kinda metaphorical and not like.... Literally the only solution to every problem ever.

not to be a 5ds stan but i'd also touch on jack and crow's ex-friends history because it literally seemed like they didn't know each other in arc v verse and i feel like if their backstory from 5ds where jack seems to be a class traitor but actually isn't was preserved then their presence would be so much more impactful. i think it's fun that arc v jack is settled and on the other side of his character development to 5ds jack so he genuinely can function in a mentor capacity to yuya, so that can stay. shinji is nothing to me, we can get rid of him. or i guess we kinda need him to be the advocate for violence who kickstarts the commons uprising but i feel like crow could have done that in a better and cooler way. sergey was kinda freaky to me though i appreciated the earthbound immortals callbacks even though it was just the aesthetics of nostalgia without any of the substance that made 5ds good, so maybe that duel should have been jack v crow and that's how their arc v universe backstory could be revealed... i do think it's thematically appropriate as well other than the fanservice since it's really relevant to the greater class tensions brewing in synchro. umm also i want <impossible world theory> to be canon but it doesn't have to be directly onscreen in the text but just know that it's real and happened for real To Me.

dennis traitor reveal was perfect, no changes necessary. sora's guilt over betraying yuzu and yuya building and building until he sort-of-not-really betrays academia to rescue yuzu was also perfect, again no changes necessary. jack/reiji/reira diplomatic royalty dinner with free mentorship was very funny and can stay. reiji_slay_fancam.mp4 trapping roget in the infinite loop was pretty good iirc and i love seeing less common duel mechanics get highlighted, so that can stay too. unsure how i feel about yugo v serena, on one hand i am so so glad that my girl reached duel tenimuho, but on the other hand WHY DID SHE HAVE TO LOSE TO YUGO. actually i think i'd change that duel to yuzu v serena because i wouldn't be mad about yuzu beating serena, in fact i would be heart touched as fuckkk and also serenadeshipping reuniting in the duel arena as reluctant rivals would be very interesting to see and i truly believe that yuzu is the person who should have awoken duel tenimuho in serena.

however, serena getting captured after being paralysed by nerve gas was literally such a stupid way to disable her like it was legit infuriating watching her just like lying there while reira tried to fight off academia soldiers to protect her... which i admittedly was very heart touched by like aww inlaws but like. extremely insulting of the show to not even give serena a chance to defend herself!!! i think she should have been duelling the academia soldiers 1 v however many and doing a pretty good job since she is literally an epic prodigy duellist but like one of the academia guys cheats somehow or sneaks up on her and knocks her out, which would also be thematically effective bc serena is very much an Honour And Fairness guy and doesn't necessarily expect dirty play from others. THEN reira could step in to try and stop them from taking serena but is sadly also unsuccessful.

so i think synchro arc should conclude in more or less the same way as canon: synchro in chaos from the rebellion (uhhh i think jack and crow can handle it though. later. fuckass high council promising socialism and equality can still happen so long as it's pretty obvious that's a lie to save their skins and more work and policy building needs to be done but again: i think jack and crow can handle it), serena recaptured by academia, yuzu in fusion, lancers minus serena in xyz.

FUSION DIMENSION

the key thing i want to change is giving ruri and rin actual personalities and character arcs, so i'd give them an entire subplot during s2 intercut with the synchro subplot. the mind control via parasite was extremely lazy so i want to see them being like forcibly integrated into academia and like, manually brainwashed and gaslit into genuine academia believers. now that i've thought about it for several years i think that i don't actually hate the parasite mind control, i just hate the way it was executed in canon, so the disgusting parasite insect thing can still be implanted in them both as a dormant backup plan. but i want ruri and rin to be won over by the academia ideology for real!! ofc i do think that it's going to be much harder to convince ruri than rin, because ruri was an active enemy rebel soldier who watched academia decimate her homeland whereas rin doesn't even know what academia is since they haven't openly started invading synchro yet, so maybe a liiiiitle bit of mindhacking to suppress some of ruri's memories and make her a blanker slate is in order. shamelessly pulling from hypmic nemu here but i also want ruri to be kinda getting swayed for real to academia ideals underneath the brainwashing/memory erasure.

i would really love rinruri classmates ;__; but i think it's unlikely that would be allowed until they were both totally convinced of the righteousness of academia's mission. BUT i do really love the idea of them having adjacent rooms in their exile tower (i think they might have been jailed in separate towers in canon but i don't care) and whispering to each other through a little gap in the wall and the sound of each other's voices being the only anchor keeping them sane in the first few precanon months of captivity before they start getting the whole academia indoctrination package. i think this would make them much more effective villains and give their s3 duels so much more emotional weight, especially bc they would actually exist as characters in their own right and not just as the objects of male characters' desires.

in terms of inventing personalities for rin and ruri, the 1.5 canonical glimpses of precanon rin mostly make her seem like even more violent yuzu, so i think she should be the loudest and bossiest and most straightforward bracelet girl. maybe also the most loyalty>ideals one, i think she really truly prioritises the people she loves above all and occupies the opposite end of the spectrum to serena's heartfelt adherence to ideals and systems. rin is a prodigy mechanic, which makes her popular in academia bc she's so good at tuning up duel disks. probably there's less stigma against synchro than xyz so she has it easier as well. we mostly see ruri in canon from shun's pov where she is [char vc] gentle which is imo obviously biased as fuck, nobody should ever trust shun as a narrator, so i think ruri should be like sayla if sayla were lacus. a kind and empathetic girl with a steel spine and unreal amounts of bravery to like a frankly stupid extent. basically in error/inheritance ruri is canon to me. i literally have such a distinct vision of ruri in my mind i can't really explain it but just understand she is brave bird maiden of the world. TO ME.

SEASON 3

XYZ DIMENSION

first of all, zexal deserves its second cameo!! i suppose shark would be the obvious contender as kaito's counterpoint to mirror jack and crow being the 5ds cameo characters, but it would also be funny/interesting if the other zexal legacy character was like, iv or rio or someone. shark/iv/rio/whoever staying affiliated with the resistance network while kaito is doing his batman vigilante thing would slay, i do think that would be a good thematic callback to zexal as well esp if there's some indication that kaito left the resistance or refused to join because haruto is missing. that's technically more cameos than allowed but zexal is so good though.

i also think being back in heartland should anchor yuto enough to have more of a presence again ala astral or atem. even if he isn't a corporeal spirit that others can see, he should be able to at least take over yuya's body and interact with other characters properly T___T i want shun and yuto to be able to kind of not really reunite in the ruins of their hometown, even though it's without ruri and without yuto's physical body, but it gives them a little bit of peace and closure after the anguish of yuto's death in s1 where shun was prevented from intervening by reiji.

the tyler sisters' three duels and edo v yuya were both extremely badly paced and shouldn't have resulted in fanatical academia commanders switching allegiances at the drop of a hat. it literally didn't matter to the plot whether the tylers changed sides or not, so i think they should have stayed loyal to academia but maybe felt like benevolent enough to let yuya shun et al go, in a cat watching a broken winged bird struggle kind of way. unfortunately edo did need to be swayed to the side of the lancers so i think there needed to be more emphasis on his pre-existing internal turmoil where his heart believes in entertainment duelling but he's been conditioned since childhood into loyalty to academia, so that the duel with yuya is more explicitly his last straw. also i don't remember the specifics but i do remember being really mad about the DuelsWithSmiles philosophy reverting back to its pre-maiami championships developments simplistic nature so we gotta keep the You Can't Save Everyone With Ideals Alone level up from synchro.

i kinda hate yusho so we can just cut all his bits, i really don't care, what did this man do successfully. quickly. dennis's parts once again outsold everything else so i think we can keep his scenes intact, absolutely loved the culmination of his internal guilt but not really arc once he can no longer run any further being the decision to help out the lancers one last time and then kill himself so he doesn't have to commit to choosing between academia or the lancers. really sad but really fitting for dennis i think.

overall i feel like xyz arc was super shortchanged and there was no reason to drag out synchro arc to an entire season just to cram xyz into a handful of eps, so i would be cutting down synchro to give xyz more screentime. i would show more of the daily resistance operations in the same way we got to see daily life with the commons in synchro esp bc i'm really curious about how the resistance is even running like are the adults all dead? there should also be more pre-invasion flashbacks to ground allen and sayaka in the xyz ensemble since they really just come off as random guys who are also there, like sayaka blaming herself for ruri's capture is such an interesting dynamic angle that should have been fleshed out more!! like how close were sayaka and ruri? how does shun feel about this? i also want to see more of ruined heartland city, i think shun should take the lancers to a resistance hideout that he reveals was his old classroom or something. like really drive in the horror and loss.

FUSION DIMENSION

i love that asuka is running a mini shelter for academia escapees within fusion and i loveeeee asuka saving yuzu so that part can stay. i don't love parasite mindhacked serena pretending to reunite with yuzu and then surprise capturing her due to evil brainwashing, i think it's maybe acceptable for serena to be parasite brainwashed due to lack of time to properly recondition her into an academia believer but i'm also deeply annoyed by the bracelet girls getting captured by everyone and their dog like the damsel in distress thing is exceedingly boring. and the damage to serena's reputation due to perceived betrayal kinda landmines me crazily. but sora arriving with reiji and reira to save the day and reconcile with yuya even though they were too late to save yuzu was really good T__T

i think either we keep in the serena trap so sora can finally conclude his heel face turn and confirm his place on the lancer side, or academia uses serena as a hostage to force yuzu to give herself up. yeah tbh this would be worth losing the official sora loyalty switch, which can still be finalised once our heroes reach academia, because it reinforces yuzu's heroine of the world nobility and courage and willingness to sacrifice herself for serena and TRUE CLONES LOVE and gives yuzu back some agency instead of constantly being tossed around from captor to captor and reminds us all that yuzu is the real protagonist of this show. in fact the mind control aspect can still be kept in but in a less landminey way, if the academia guy in charge of this capture mission explains that serena is being mindhacked and basically threatens to force serena to kill herself unless yuzu goes with them.

YUGO v RIN + SHUN v RURI

now that we've done the appropriate setup for turning rin and ruri into real academia soldiers we can have some epic and emotionally meaningful duels against their loved ones!! no real thoughts about yugo v rin except that rin being the most genuinely convinced of academia's ideals and the most tenacious one should lead to extremely heated ideological debate against yugo. rin never saw or knew what academia did to xyz or even to synchro, so i do want to see how she responds to yugo's equally impassioned arguments about academia being war criminals who are also kinda the guys responsible for the crazy class divides in synchro and therefore all of rin and yugo's social problems growing up as commons kids, and whether her new conditioning can hold up against that or if rin will double down and not listen to yugo at all. which i think she will because i think that's kinda what rin is like. rin can win this duel as per original canon as well but she doesn't kill yugo because she does still love yugo and believes he can be brought over to academia's side as well.

kaito v ruri kind of a weird af choice for Ruri Evil Reveal duel but sure peggle. like i don't really know why shun wasn't there from the start and kaito was filling in for shun for a bit, though Me And My Rival At Home's Little Sister is a pretty funny dynamic conceptually. anyway probably the most important or at least top3 most important changes to me personally is KUROSAKIS DUEL... again i'm cribbing from what i've osmosed of aohitsugis showdown but i literally just want that for shun and ruri. like partly mindhacked partly Real Academia Believer ruri facing off against shun who doesn't want to hurt ruri / continues to underestimate ruri but there's no other way to get through to her and it's very angsty Will Love Be Enough? and ruri willingly summons independent nightingale even though it's a fusion monster and she swore never to use the enemy's summoning techniques and this is what drives home to shun that ruri is not the delicate violence-averse little sister he remembers and maybe never was. my god i just got so mad and pressed again thinking about how the message of original canon shun v ruri is that ruri wanting to be "independent" is a sign of deep evil and wrongness and only the ruri who unquestioningly obeys her brother is good and the real ruri.

obviously shun would be like furious and disbelieving and How Dare You Betray Our Fallen Comrades but he is 1) so bad at logical argument because he's way too emotive and angry to engage 2) operating under serious delusional misunderstandings about ruri and her personality like shun is literally under char levels of assumption and misconception, so i really don't think he can change ruri's mind intellectually even without her mindhacking. i think the key to getting ruri on board with academia is for the professor to convince her that everyone who was killed will be brought back to life once the dimensions are reintegrated. that's the kind of hope ruri would cling to and i think that would help her understand academia's vision, because the human cost of the war would not longer really be a cost if it's only temporary. so that's ruri's stance, which has (to her) more solid ideological and practical basis so it's harder to shake off the mindhacking. so they have no choice but to battle it out anguishedly.

instead of the scene where the suppressed Real Ruri inside Parasite Ruri stops her from countering shun's killing blow and allows shun to win i think ruri does need to win this duel. even in canon ruri has been a prodigy duellist who can beat shun since she was a literal toddler and i think winning is necessary to force shun to come to terms with ruri's strength and personhood separate from his love for her. BUT i do still want there to be a scene where shun breaks through the mindhacking with some combination of dealing heavy damage and genuine I Know You're In There Somewhere desperation and ruri has a disoriented Wait Why Am I Fighting My Brother? hesitation moment and love is almosttttt enough but the parasite kicks in again and ruri still wins the duel. ruri then lets shun go as well, i don't think she believes he can be convinced to join academia in the way rin believes yugo can but she does love him too much to kill him.

i really like the concept of ruri/serena v yuya(yuto)/shun tag duel so that can stay, world's most depressing doubles match fr. serena would have to be fully mind controlled ofc and i would like to see ruri acting as control tower and serena acting as weapon. i think yuto needs to have control of the body for this one the whole way through though, like yuya can just take a break, i honestly don't care about the zarc darkness resonance thing. i think this duel needs to be interrupted before anyone wins... maybe by reiji so my ship can be in the same frame? or more realistically by yuri to collect the bracelet girls so the ray reintegration process can begin. i did enjoy reiji's male hysteria daddy issues moment when he chooses to side with yuya over leo so that can stay, i always like to see yugioh protag and yugioh rival working together.

ZARC + RAY + FINALE DUEL

i guess yuya can still lose control despite his and reiji's best efforts to hold zarc back and end up absorbing his counterparts and reawakening zarc, but everyone lining up in dimension order to duel zarc was so stupid so we can just get rid of that, or at the very least condense it, i am aware this is an extended card game advertisement and they do need to be showing the new cards they want to sell. i mostly think it was so sickening that they just had the bracelet girls helplessly trapped in the arc v reactor thing just spectating while everyone fights to save them.

in the same way that the presence of zarc inside yuya is so evil it literally disintegrates the parasite i think that the growing presence of ray inside the bracelet girls should also be powerful enough to disintegrate the parasites so they can all get unbrainwashed on their own. no time to sort out ideology because they need to deal with zarc first, so while all the guys are getting thrashed by zarc the bracelet girls are having a newtype clone empathy link moment where they all come to understand that the only way to stop zarc from destroying the worlds is by relinquishing their individual identities and fusing back together. and this should be treated as a really sad and horrible thing because they ARE different girls and none of them are ray but they are willing to sacrifice themselves to save everyone. so instead of forcible reintegration they do it on purpose, knowing exactly what they're giving up, but facing the prospect of nonexistence calmly and with hope. surely it is a privilege to approach the end etc.

i am not super sure what to do about reira, i kiinda like reira v reiji in principle and think that duel has a lot of delicious angsty brocon potential but the stakes are too impersonal and don't really make sense. like if reira is hearing ray's spirit and believing that fusing the bracelet girls is the only way to stop zarc and explains all this to reiji, canon doesn't really give a reason as to why reiji wouldn't make the For The Greater Good judgment to let it happen, since the pointtttt of akaba brothers drama is that reiji literally does value reira he's just bad at showing that he cares about anyone, and the show dropped the prodigyshipping ship tease threads )': so as the prodigyshipper and text repairer in question i would obviously emphasise reiji's care for serena as the reason why he's so resistant to the idea of sacrificing the bracelet girls to resurrect ray. serena's always been the exception to reiji's usual methodical utilitarian rationality, he always acts irrationally when it comes to protecting her, and it would LITERALLY MAKE ALL OF THIS MAKE SENSE to make prodigyshipping canon like it should be. so this needs to be happening at the same time, which also neatly prevents reiji from joining the zarc fight for a while since he's a bit too op.

anyway zarc kills all the other guys and eats their souls to grow in power. meanwhile, guided by ray, all the bracelet girls agree to combine themselves together inside the reactor and they all slowly disappear into sparkly soul particles and reappear outside of the reactor... but it isn't ray! it's yuzu! but with all the strength and power of the other bracelet girls inside her, because the entire point is that the bracelet girls aren't ray, and leo's plan was always doomed to fail because he didn't understand that and he didn't respect that the bracelet girls weren't just 1/4 of ray, they were each their own person. and it's yuzu's turn to I Know You're In There Somewhere duel zarc in the attempt to bring yuya back so they can all defeat zarc Together. having yuzu duel zarc would also be an excellent bookend to the show, since it starts with yuya v yuzu, and also the role reversal where the protag turns out to be the final boss villain and the main girl turns out to be the protag would be really cool.

so yuzu is duelling zarc, and it's going well at first, but just as ray=/=bracelet girls, zarc also=/=yu4, and zarc begins to make a comeback bc by pure numbers it's 5 (zarc/yuya/yuto/yugo/yuri) against 4 (yuzu/serena/ruri/rin). but it's okay, because ray is also here! reira allows ray's spirit to take over his body as a vessel and ray joins the duel to even out the playing field. and with the support of ray's strength, technique, knowledge of zarc's strategies, and most importantly 風花雪月 cards, yuzu deals the final blow to zarc and there's some cool power visualisations of the 風花雪月 cards backed by the spirits of the bracelet girls trapping zarc in bright golden light and then zarc disappears and the cards flutter down to the ground.

now yuzu and ray are the only two people still alive in the ruined academia hall and it's time for some being girls who are sort of but not completely the same person is the most special thing in the universe newtype mind palace d&ms. ray picks up the cards that are holding zarc and the yu4 and she and yuzu discuss what to do next. ray says that splitting the dimensions apart was like a stopgap measure to hold zarc back and if they're reunited it will free the souls of everyone killed to fuel the arc v reactor and bring everyone back. yuzu says, so yuya and the others can come back? even serena, ruri, rin? ray says, of course. i'm not you, and zarc isn't yuya.

yuzu asks if zarc might ever come back. ray says, not this time. instead of splitting herself and splitting zarc across dimensions, she's going to take zarc away from the dimensions entirely and leave the bracelet girls and yu4 to be their own people and she and zarc will just exist outside of spacetime. i think this would also rehabilitate zarcray in my eyes, it would be pretty funny and romantic for them to do a professional rivals to enemies to newtype ghost lovers checking and balancing each other together for eternity trajectory.

yuzu says, but you'll be gone too. ray says, i already am. ray sacrificed herself to seal zarc away in the first place and leo refused to honour that sacrifice, but ray chose to give up her life and she has no problem sticking to that decision since she knows she is supposed to be dead. their time is over, the universe has been reset, this life belongs to the bracelet girls and the yu4. out of the 風花雪月 cards, ray withdraws a glowing ball of light which is zarc's soul, and then she passes the cards to yuzu. the sleeping forms of the yu4 are vaguely visible inside. ray says, i'll leave the rest to you, yuzu-chan. then she and zarc disappear.

alone but not alone because she has the other bracelet girls with her, creation goddess yuzu resets the universe one last time, freeing all the souls trapped in arc v and bringing everyone back to life and uniting the dimensions--not merging them, in the way that leo tried to merge the bracelet girls into ray, but bridging them together so they retain separation but are connected. burn starts playing over the end credits. the yu4 emerge from the cards. yuzu herself shimmers and separates back out into four different girls who all tearfully but joyfully hug each other. cue montage of scenes from across the four dimensions of people blinking back into existence, ruri and shun and yuto reunite, reiji and serena and reira reunite, yugo and rin, dennis blinking in surprise to find himself alive again and smiling ruefully, and the show ends with yuya and yuzu smiling at each other and together again. i can throw the main canon het a bone i don't mind.

CODA ARC

i don't think we need this. it was already incredibly bad in the show and wouldn't make any sense with my new and improved ending. i still think "we need to make the demon baby laugh by duelling in front of it or else the world will end again" is one of the stupidest plot points i've ever heard of in my life. we literally only need like maybe a short postcredits scene to show the in-progress work of rebuilding infrastructure and governance in the wake of the war but there is a general atmosphere of hope and idealism and idk maybe a camera pan up to two lights in the sky for zarc and ray, still watching over the new generation.

but i also do have thoughts on how i would fix the coda arc without getting rid of it altogether:

• no demon baby. non-negotiable. the important duels in the coda arc are all independently motivated anyway. we can keep the premise of the bracelet girls being missing / still trapped inside arc v and the overarching plot of the coda being to hunt down the arc v fragments across the dimensions so the bracelet girls can be freed.
• lean more heavily into the lotus eater dream / time loop reset vibes at the start where nobody remembers the whole interdimensional war / zarc and ray / etc thing so it's more of a creeping realisation that wait, something is wrong, something (SOMEONE) is missing rather than tsukikage just randomly announcing it to everyone.
• keep the part where yuya shows up in xyz dimension and allen and sayaka are like umm yeah akaba reiji called shun to join his scavenger hunt but shun ghosted him and went to fusion dimension to look for ruri. bc that was really funny.
• dennis's redemption duel was perfect showstopping amazing a really well-written and emotionally touching conclusion to his character arc so i would keep that intact. his motive is atonement for his war crimes against xyz and trying to reclaim the entertainment duelling philosophy and realise its potential to bring people together and give joy to others, which works perfectly w/o demon baby thing.
• shun's anger and grief over finding out that yuto and ruri might be permanently gone causing him to recklessly challenge yuya to a duel also makes perfect sense, but i really don't believe that he would set the stakes of the duel of If I Lose, I Will Happily Give Up My Entire Primary Driving Motivation This Entire Series so i would just leave that bit out and have shun be like extremely unhinged and destabilised while blocking yuya's access to the arc v fragment in fusion bc he wants to get ruri out of there. i love that shun's last and most powerful ace monster is final fortress falcon, who is geared around protection instead of destruction like all of shun's other monsters... 揺るぎない信念と深き慈愛の心 in the summon chant... it's all love always has been. but also it must be said that ultimate falcon outsold on a stats/utility basis so hard it's not even funny so final fortress falcon was kinda a downgrade in execution, we need to get her better effects and at least 5000 atk like at least make her a crazy beatstick for how hard she is to summon lmfao.
  • anyway shun obviously needs to lose this duel and let yuya take the arc v fragment as promised but i think he should still be bitter and grieving and yuya should feel really guilty about it.
• i am literally a jack atlas onepicker but HE SHOULD NOT HAVE HAD THE PENULTIMATE DUEL IN ARC V LMAO HE DOESN'T EVEN GO HERE. it was funny when jack yelled at yuya to get a fucking grip but this duel should not have happened.
• there's kinda no justification for having a reiji v yuya duel in my version of the coda other than like... ceremonial purposes? but i'm not mad about it being the finale duel, i do think it would have been better if it was penultimate and yuya v yuzu was the finale for bookending purposes like i said before, but the duel was fine i guess, yuto/yugo/yuri regaining some sentience and communicating with yuya was good, the real zarc sealing method was the friends and clones we made along the way or whatever. i do think that it's nice if the yu4 assert their separation from zarc and therapise him from the inside.
• i do definitely think that if you're going to have a ""happy"" ending then the bracelet girls and yu4 all need to be resurrected again like no way you're writing 6 entire characters out of existence and being like my job here is done 😂 i also don't like the four dimensions being merged into one dimension, i think that's kind of horrifying and runs counter to what arc v was setting up in s1 re: bracelet girls being different from each other -> similarly the dimensions don't need to be forcibly integrated to be connected.
  • I SERIOUSLY HATE IT WHEN GIRLS DIE. like even if they don't all regain corporeality they should at least be sentient and roomsharing in yuzu's body. and same with yu4.
  • i just keep getting so heated and smad every time i think about how my all time yugioh onepick, literally my #1 character from my #1 fandom, was batted around as a pawn with no agency for her entire life and then incapacitated for half the show and then fridged and then permanently written out of existence altogether like it's just so sick that someone as fiercely desperate for freedom and selfhood as serena got to experience like 2.5 moments of joy and love and connection and affirmation of individuality and opportunity to take action on her own behalf in the middle of all that misery and loneliness and then she suffered until she died and then she was erased from the text for good just to really drive the injustice home AND I WAS SUPPOSED TO FIND THAT A NICE AND PERFECT AND HAPPY ENDING? KYSSSSSSS

anywayyy if you read all that thank you for staying 🙂💖 this is a topic i have been furiously thinking about for many years and will probably continue to think about for many more years in the future until i die and i request arc v to lower my coffin into the grave so it can let me down one last time. not kidding when i say arc v is the worst anime i have ever seen in my life and indeed the worst story i have ever experienced in my life but it is tragically still my """"""favourite""""""" because 1) fuck my stupid baka life 2) no other show has serena nolastname in it. unfortunately. 😞

answers are generally indexed in chronological order per subheading, my views may have shifted quite significantly over time so please take older responses (as in, literally anything prior to 2021) and anything relating to mbti or synastry with a grain of salt, and feel free to send me an ask if there's anything you'd like me to discuss further!!

last updated: 16/08/23

( ✨ )

some brief (for real this time) theories on the direction that detective conan is heading in by guy who pays zero attention to plot:

CERTAIN

wakasa is amanda hughes's missing bodyguard asaka
this is so obvious i can't believe it hasn't been explicitly confirmed in the text yet. conan believes that asaka is a woman, and wakasa is clearly connected to the haneda kohji case, has extreme martial arts prowess and scarring consistent with a combat-heavy job AND her name is v similar to asaka (people in conan love to use anagrams as aliases).

LIKELY

wakasa and haneda kohji were in love
wakasa carries haneda kohji's good luck charm around with her, has significant emotional flashbacks to conversations with him, is extremely devoted to his case, and also appears with him in the veronica ed sequence that runs through a bunch of other canon hets, so i think they were probably in love if not actually dating.

fbi and psb will officially cooperate... eventually
jurisdictional tensions have killed 🙄 but like... surely when it comes down to it and the protags launch a proper counterattack against the black org it would be so fucking stupid if the fbi and psb weren't working together. all the allies will have to unite at some point i believe it. anyway popping the biggest bottles when akai + amuro teamwork in present timeline main canon :) in another 10 years of serialisation maybe.

SPECULATIVE

mary's cough is a side effect of taking aptx at an older age
since mary doesn't seem to have had the cough before deaging, it must have been caused by the aptx, but neither haibara nor conan exhibit the same symptoms. i think it must be a consequence of mary being much older than shinshi when vermouth forced her to take the aptx--she's in her 50s whereas shinshi were teens, and the deaging process is extremely strenuous on the physical body, so probably it fucked her up more than them since she had further to deage.

vermouth will turn on gin in order to save ran's life
i think that vermouth's self-sabotaging careful protection of her two treasures/achilles heels (especially ran*) is going to culminate in vermouth actually betraying the black organisation at some critical climatic moment, most likely at a point where gin is about to kill ran. i'm not sure if either gin or vermouth will die, i really hope vermouth doesn't but i also don't feel like she's likely to ever actually ally with the protags. if gin does die, i'm pretty sure vermouth will be the one to kill him because shinichi's philosophy is so geared towards Everyone Must Live Even Murderers so i doubt that anyone on the protag team will do so... or at least not the teen division. but none of the adult cast really has personal stakes re: gin anyway except maybe akai but he is not giving very rivalristic energy about gin so it's not like vermouth is going to have much competition narrative-wise.

* vermouth has a much lower margin of tolerance for danger to ran than she does for shinichi, her protectiveness over shinichi manifests more in covering up for him and turning the black org's focus away from him and not directly harming him, whereas vermouth won't even allow ran to be in situations where she could potentially be harmed. like shinichi is already neck deep in dark business but vermouth is really invested in keeping her angel out of it altogether. very clear in the betrayal's stage case where vermouth stopped ran from entering the crime scene because she didn't want ran to see the murder

haibara's future
i see 3 main options open for haibara's postcanon route:

1. she remains in her child body as haibara ai
2. she returns to her adult body as miyano shiho

3. she returns to her adult body but keeps her haibara ai identity
 

in my opinion (2) or potentially (3) are the most likely options for reasons i already went through <here> but also like... the route/s that i want the most so my judgement may be subjective. i know (1) is quite popular in fandom because We All want haibara to have a second chance at a happy childhood but i think it's also important that haibara gets all that same love and friendship even as lonely maiden shiho!! shiho resurrection as a real girl i would like to see it...

akai might die
i don't want him to die but i feel death flags in this chilis tonight... like if anyone in the main protag team dies i think it will be akai because he has not died when killed too many times. i'm not sure if gosho is going to kill anyone off in the finale, nobody in the core cast has died (yet) but it's possible that he is saving up the emotional impact of killing off a major player for the last battle. i'm somewhat worried that his line to haibara about protecting her even if it costs him his life was actually foreshadowing... i do think that if akai ends up dying it will be to save haibara, or possibly amuro because he is also very invested in keeping amuro safe. ok i didn't intend for this post to be like increasingly unconcealable fujo goggles but IN THE TEXT,

「そんな顔するな」/ "don't make that face"
akai said this to conan during the kir arc, and also to haibara as okiya when they were tracking down where conan was being held hostage which reminded her of a time he said it to her as rye when he promised to keep akemi safe, so i guess this is one of his catchphrases... i think/hope that akai will say this to amuro as well at some point. i mean like ideally in my fujo visions it will be during the finale battle while akai is like grievously injured (BUT NOT DYING AND WILL LATER MAKE A FULL RECOVERY) and amuro is panicking about it, or like akai about to enter a potentially deadly situation they both know he might not survive. i think these actually have an objectively decent chance of happening in canon as they do not have to be overtly romantic it just is... TO ME.

ongoing compilation of the gundam references i discover in aoyama gosho's gundam fic magnum opus detective conan. i don't know anything about gundam btw

( gosho is such a successful fan )

quick breakdown of the newly released vol. 95 secret 5 AR conversation between akai and amuro (well, bourbon) after the unsolved cocktail case (by breakdown i'm referring to my mental state rn), translational liberties taken for flow:

( AKAM OFFICIAL CONTENT HAS KILLED )

the relationship between akam is so complex that throwing a third person into the mix has really fun results 🙂 this post will go through my favourite triangulation options, roughly a sequel to my <1140shipping post>

HAIBARA

i'm obsessed with darkbatchshipping just for the name like how perfect is it that there is literally an alcohol comprised of rye sherry and bourbon that exists... i couldn't NOT open it plus they are narratively entangled For Free!!! akai is hardcarrying so much guilt and atonement here because it IS his fault that akemi died and he's shouldering the blame for scotch's death. and he's making absolutely zero attempt to seek forgiveness, not even for scotch, because he has virgo venus acts of service disease and thinks it's best for him to bear the burden rather than anyone else. he's self-appointed guard dog for my bitchy cat 2pick who both (think they) don't want him there but he is always always looking out for them anyway.

i also realised the other day that darkbatchshipping is literally just conan compromiseshipping which was whole new levels of everything i like is the same embarrassingness ~__~ it's like this:


AND i endgame isolated prodigy girl with unkillable guy's sister(/aspect thereof)... but also the vibe is different from compromiseshipping because i completely believe in akam endgame but i can only see hostageshipping endgame is very specific circumstances... and i genuinely do romantically ship all three components of compromise (and prefer peregrine and prodigy to hostage) but dark batch is just narrativeshipping to me (and obviously i like akam the most). but narrativeshipping also is not a "just" so basically You have to have a very high iq in order t

most darkbatchshipping art landmines me because i can tell op mains the het parts... literally only akam shippers understand amuro hets. you have to be a 腐女子 to comprehend amuro's relationships with women it's true. my heart was soooo touched by amuro and haibara's dynamic in <this akam dj>, the standoffish not-quite-friendliness but the unexpected emotional honesty and vulnerability from two people who extremely distance themselves from emotional honesty and vulnerability in their d&m about causing other people unhappiness / that happiness is not something that can be decided by anyone other than yourself... haibara is only peripherally in <this comic> but it's perfect to me i love the idea of haibara and akai discussing work at cafe poirot. i also thought <this art> was cute and haibara's expressions were in-character enough that i didn't mind the girl matchmaker trope the way i usually do... <this> is also very cute. if they aren't working (which is my favourite context for darkbatch) they kind of need to not be doing anything in order to not landmine me so i can just look at them and be like wow i love to see my beautiful picks looking beautiful together eg 1 / 2 / 3 / 4

SHINICHI

scarletshipping is like... canon. shinichi is kind of so textually in akam's business it's unreal... partly because he's the protag but also he is literally the triangulation point in amuro's investigation into akai's death since he's the one who orchestrated the plan and it takes amuro realising this to unravel the truth. the whole scarlet arc is just akai shinichi amuro engaged in super sexy 5d grandmaster chess battles and the fact that many of the most intensely charged akam scenes happen in shinichi's house is really Much To Consider IT'S IN THE TEXT!!

it's incredibly interesting to me that shinichi was actually able to predict amuro's actions more accurately than akai, who has known him for years and years, because akai underestimated how much amuro hated him and therefore how far he was willing to go to capture him. i haven't decided if i think this is because akai doesn't view amuro as a real threat or if it's because akai thinks highly of amuro's logical reasoning skills and didn't think he would pull something as crazy as jeopardising his cover and taking out akai's colleagues just to get to akai... probably it's both. but shinichi sees amuro more clearly because he doesn't have the sentiment and history that akai carries about amuro. it's fine for akai to be this way because amuro literally cannot beat him no matter how hard he tries according to aoyama himself, but the same cannot be said for the rest of the fbi, so it's good that shinichi doesn't trust amuro lmao.

i definitely see the shinichi being akam's co-mentee scarletshipping vision i think their skillsets work really well together!! the darkest nightmare was already basically shinichi being akam's get-along shirt and breaking up their fight and instigating their epic teamwork since the only time they're able to put aside their differences and work together is when the the situation is dire enough to weight The Greater Good more heavily than Trying To Kill Akai in amuro's mental scales... the metaphorical resonance of amuro tossing conan across a deadly gap and akai on the other side catching him <3 the inverted 2 people who know mutual 3rd person better trope is really funny because akam are the ones with the history together but they both get along better with shinichi than each other.

also this is kind of the only triangulation where i would like to see the 3p for real but i have not had much luck trying to termsearch but i DO think they should all fuck... amuro can have 2 tops as a treat. like literally if it's not a long-term arrangement and just a casual once or twice thing i think akai's generosity can outweigh his possessiveness. i will add the link once i get my twt archive and can find it again but i saw this akam + shinichi comic where akam were secretly dating and shinichi dropped by amuro's house one morning and akai answered the door shirtless (forgetting that amuro wanted to keep their relationship secret for the moment) and shinichi got super embarrassed, and i'm sure it was not op's intention but it did come off literally like a threesome porno intro. the first comic in <this pixiv log> where akai is dubconly fucking amuro and shinichi comes back into the room like "sorry, i'm curious about what amuro-san looks like when he's being fucked... dw i have a girlfriend so i will only be watching tho" REALLY created an image that made me think, i loveeeee voyeurism/exhibitionism/humiliation triple combo. i can also envision a scenario where akai is directing shinichi on how to fuck amuro🤔 scarletshipping 3some/s will have to happen in a splinter timeline tho because shinran are so married in my main canon vision...

some further scarletshipping visuals: 1 / 2 / 3

VERMOUTH

MY FAVOURITE BLACK ORG POWER DYNAMIX i'm so obsessed with the pretty popular rye/bourbon trope that vermouth leverages bourbon against rye just for fun and antagonistic powerplay reasons by implying sexual and/or romantic intimacy between her and bourbon that doesn't actually exist... eg 1 / 2 / 3 / 4. i don't think vermouth and bourbon are fucking but i think they have a complicated slightly antagonistic but also close relationship that's like... they are classmate-esque coworker joint venture business partners except there's tense power dynamics where vermouth is bourbon's superior and won't hesitate to pull rank authority over him but still expresses displeasure when gin decides he wants to execute bourbon BUT also bourbon has leverage on vermouth because he knows one of her secrets. so their cooperation is a mix of real platonically flirtatious chemistry/getting along/liking each other + mutually aligned goals where vermouth helps bourbon investigate akai's "death" with her boss's favourite Does Whatever She Wants privileges and bourbon helps vermouth hunt down haibara and they will even go undercover as married together + manipulation and duress under the guise of <high society courtesy> from both sides.

a lot of vermouth/bourbon skews too simplistically friendly for my personal tastes but <this sacred text comic> is spot on to me, the outwards lightness and the concealed threats underneath the smiles <33 the vibes of these are also perfect to me: 1 (p3 says bourbon is sticking his tongue out at rye kkk) / 2 / 3 (also features haibara and kir!!!!! op is god so much). <this comic> which is also sacred text to me is about as light as i think their relationship gets. i also hc that vermouth taught bourbon how to honeypot and assigns him honeypotting missions for the black org because i love mildly dubcon mentorships since bourbon literally is not in a position where he can refuse... visually i love to see bourbon being vermouth's luxury handbag and they are so expensive beautiful killeristic blondes together esp when co-infiltrating some rich person event (eg 1 / 2 / 3).

i imagine vermouth and akai don't get along well because vermouth actively enjoys antagonising and fucking with anyone for free, but also i love that vermouth literally doesn't actually care about akai. he might be the destined downfall of the black organisation but he's not HER silver bullet, it was so funny when she found out about his death and she was just like well w/e, i already got my own silver bullet (shinichi) at home. it's just fun and free 1.0 vs 1.0 haterism without any particular personal investment. eg 1 / 2.

SCOTCH

the most textual triangulation point because i mean... scotch IS inextricable from akam as they are now. whiskey trio as a grouping is sort of made up but just because it's made up doesn't mean it's not REAL... they canonically did at least one mission as a trio and i really enjoy the fandom wide hc that they regularly worked together. when he was still alive i think scotch was kind of like rye and bourbon's get along shirt because he seemed to be a nice and easygoing guy. and not to rehash everything i just said in my 1140 post but obviously the circumstances surrounding his death are fundamental to akam's relationship because amuro's mistaken belief that akai killed scotch is driving his bitter hatred for akai + akai willingly taking the blame to shield amuro from the painful truth. amuro who will never forgive akai, akai who doesn't want to be forgiven... i love grief and tragedy.

scotch was amuro's childhood best friend classmate co-infiltrator but i think that you can read more into their relationship from how deeply scotch's death affected amuro and how viciously he hates akai for it... i still haven't decided if it's part of my official personal canon or if i'll stick with really close best friends, but i like to rotate unrequited amuro->scotch since it does maximise the angst. these images do be convincing me: 1 (i already linked this but it's sacred text so true) / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 (LITERALLY MY FAVOURITE EVER... the canon ver of this scene is already so good and anguish inducing but the way kou-nim drew amuro's expression fucks me up even more. amuro pressing his ear to scotch's chest trying to listen for a heartbeat even tho scotch is clearly dead gets me soooo bad T__T smth about the clumsy physicality + the desperation).

regardless, i like the tragic irony that scotch tried so hard to bring akam together when he was alive but his death is what drove the irreparable (for now) rift between them. ofc scotch's death weighs most obviously and heavily on amuro, but scotch was also one of akai's colleagues and friends and it was akai's gun that killed scotch, akai just seems to deal with grief more healthily than amuro, i really liked the rye/scotch dynamic in <this comic> and i loveeeeee the emotion in <this comic> where amuro is the one who dies. i've seen a common theme in a few akam comics that scotch at one point privately asked rye to look out for bourbon (in a lighter context) because bourbon is kind of hasty/impulsive/more prone to danger due to working in recon and that's one of the reasons akai continues to watch over amuro... which would also create a parallel to the reason he watches over haibara being a request from akemi. It's All Connected, TO ME.

KIR

does this have any basis in canon? no. do i want to see it anyway? YES. i loveeeeeee coworkers who distrust each other, i love that they are all double agents from different organisations who puppet three identities (akai/rye/okiya + furuya/bourbon/amuro + hidemi/kir/rena), i love that amuro has spent like years trying to hunt akai down to kill him but kir got in there first (as part of previously arranged scheme to fake akai's death so she could regain the black org's trust + so akai could operate more freely under a fake identity). also the fact that amuro's delusional belief that he's the only one who can kill akai means that he's inadvertently insulting kir's professionalism and capabilities as well as putting her cover at risk by insisting akai isn't actually dead is kind of really funny.

i've really liked the idea of ryekir american undercover operative colleagues ever since i saw <this comic> so i look forward to the fbi/cia joint investigations in their postcanon future, plus it's very personal that kir was the one who killed akai even though it was faked. and they look very nice together, dark hair curly bangs serious energy. and <this comic> opened my eyes to kirbourbon paired recon mission fancy dress infiltration colleagues... the darkest nightmare had kir and amuro chained together while gin was interrogating them on suspicion of being traitors and they looked very beautiful and pickful together even though they did not speak to each other or even look at each other BUT THAT HAS NEVER STOPPED ME BEFORE🙂

some epic visuals: 1 / 2

AKEMI

definitely not in a love triangle sense or anything!! i'm actually so relieved aoyama specifically clarified that amuro's hatred of akai has absolutely nothing to do with akemi, but i think it's really so special that they both loved her deeply albeit in different ways and how she had such a deep impact on both of them... akemi's boyfriend and akemi's childhood friend even though she forgot him... <this tweet> is exactly how i feel about the situation, akai who has moved on and accepted her death as in the past but will carry the beautiful memory of akemi and his love for her in his heart forever, and amuro who wouldn't love akai if he wasn't the type of person to do that. and of course amuro wants akemi's memory to be kept alive too...

i mentioned in my <t/b criteria post> that my ideal 1 x 0 dynamic is "hostageshipping aka proud/tsundere/resentful bottom is reluctant and embarrassed to admit to what they want and has to be forcibly unrepressed by magnanimous but fully in control top who knows exactly what the bottom wants. and there are power struggles in vain or for plausible deniability reasons" and i wanted to elaborate on that by providing some case studies. this is specifically about 1s and 0s (ie dynamics that i think are sexy) not my favourite ships necessarily. but anyway here is some further elaboration on my ultimate 1 x 0 ship HOSTAGESHIPPING aka zerofalcon aka reiji/shun from yugioh arc v:

the contextual gist of hostageshipping is like... what if you were the son of the guy who sent an army to invade my home dimension / massacre everyone / kidnap my sister so i hunted you down across dimensions intending to take you hostage to trade for my sister but you offered to strike a deal where i work for you while you assemble your own army to strike back at your dad and essentially i became the hostage instead. cue absolutely insane power dynamics. the only problem is that not even hostageshipping fully lives up to the hostageshipping print for reasons i will outline shortly so the perfect 1 x 0 dynamic doesn't actually exist in my knowledge (YET...?)

also obligatory link to my all-time magnum opus from 2017 <compromiseshipping manifesto> which explains everything in more detail (so so much detail)

HOSTAGESHIPPING BLUEPRINT

IDEAL 0 TRAITS

• wants to kill the 1
  • importantly, is unable to kill the 1, though not for lack of trying
• strong sense of pride and independence, very stubborn
• repressed
• prickly, tsundere, probably a bitch (at least to the 1, may be nice to other people)
  • actually it's really funny if they ARE nice to other people but just like extremely a bitch towards the 1 specifically
• super competitive and petty about it
• competent and proud of their skill
  • which is why it's even more frustrating that the 1 is stronger than them
• a lot of pent-up anger that doesn't get expressed either because they're repressed or there's some situational factors that prevent them from doing so (eg sense of professionalism, agreement to cooperate)
• picky / fussy / otherwise particular or detail oriented
• regularly gets injured / beaten up / bloody
• desperate but trying not to look like it or otherwise good at hiding it
• generally has like massively intense emotions but sublimated to varying degrees of success

IDEAL 1 TRAITS

• cool, levelheaded, difficult to faze
• confident and self-assured
• control issues manifest in the form of magnanimity
  • they are so secure in having the upper hand that they can afford to give gifts/concessions/leeway to others (on their terms ofc)
  • indulgent but like controllingly
• patient and slow to anger, able to handle the 0's moods
• stronger, higher ranked, more powerful, older, taller than the 0
• megalomaniac asshole (may still be nice)
• possessive but exhibitionist streak
• generous in manipulative and dubcon way
  • i saw a tweet from a jfan joking that the S in SM stands for service and suddenly i understood everything... the energy is "i want to give you what you want, even if you don't know or want to admit that you want it, AND/OR what you want is for me to be the one who wants it instead of you"
  • if that makes sense
• like just really generous overall. like virgo venus leo mars style
• probably the killer / subtype thereof

IDEAL DYNAMIC

• no reverse, obviously
• extremely fixed power dynamic despite constant and futile attempts from the 0 to subvert it
  • but they don't ACTUALLY want to subvert it they just think they do
• 0 has strong haterism towards 1, 1 finds this cute and charming and will probably tease 0 about it
  • like this: 1-❤-><-💢-0
  • the haterism should have both ideological elements and personal elements. and also have parts that are justifiable and parts that are just super petty
  • one-sided rivalry is so good and funny to me i love the 0 going all out trying to defeat/kill/etc the 1 but the 1 barely registering them as a threat because they are objectively stronger
• unnegotiated bdsm and especially d/s elements
• it's about the 0 maintaining plausible deniability that they Don't Want This by semi-performatively semi-genuinely struggling or fighting back in a situation they know they can't win so they can be "forced" into submission without having to endure the damage to their pride caused by willingly giving in or the humiliation of admitting to wanting anything. all of which the 1 is fully aware of but happy to indulge (with some teasing)
  • this is a big part of why i like strength/power/ability to determine top/bottom positioning because like... if the 0 can easily overpower the 1 there's no more plausible deniability??
  • forcible unrepression is so good. intricate rituals...

the original hostageshipping: reiji/shun (yugioh arc v)

ways in which hostageshipping is perfect

• absolutely no reverse!!!!
• extremely extremely skewed power dynamic where reiji completely has the upper hand in skill, rank hierarchy, bargaining power, resources available, duelling strength, ability......
• shun wants to kill reiji so bad first in a war enemy way and then in a personal haterism way but he can't because he agreed to play by reiji's rules in order to save his sister so all he can do is seethe with rage while reluctantly obeying reiji's commands
  • every time shun wants to go off on his own to do something (like HELP HIS DYING BEST FRIEND) reiji coolly shuts him down and shun is soooo pissed about having to roll over but he does anyway
• shun literally put himself in this position lmfao like due to picking the lesser of two evils since reiji is ostensibly on the same side of the war as him but it's still really funny that he actively chose to give reiji this insane amount of power over him no matter how much he hates it
• reiji memorywiped some other LDS students who duelled shun before his recruitment, so shun knows that there's always the threat that he will be memorywiped into compliance if he steps out of line
  • memory is especially important to shun because he's lost everything (best friend, sister, hometown) and memory is literally all he has left so this is a very effective implied threat
• reiji is very generous in condescending ways seemingly calculated to rub salt into the wound re: reiji's control of him:
  • he gifts shun brand new raidraptor pendulum cards he's designed to perfectly synergise with shun's existing deck in order to let him access the powerful new pendulum summoning technique... to highlight that his control of shun can extend even over his duelling
  • he sets the duel field during shun's tournament duels to a replica of shun's now-destroyed hometown... to push him to the brink of a grief/rage-fuelled breakdown and make him duel more intensely
  • he installs shun as his functional second-in-command... to put him in situations where shun will be forced to acquiesce to reiji's orders in front of other people

ways in which hostageshipping is not perfect

• reiji is shorter and younger than shun... height and age isn't that important to me compared to other things but IDEALLY i like my 1s to be larger and older than 0s
• hostageshipping is not my favourite ship for either of them, which is peregrineshipping (shun/serena) for shun and prodigyshipping (reiji/serena) for reiji. because SERENA is my onepick and actually i care most about her dynamics with shun and reiji so hostageshipping is really just one arm of compromiseshipping to me. because serena should be there
• shun is not really a 0 anyway because peregrineshipping is shun/serena in that order. even if reiji/shun no reverse serenaright no reverse is even more non-negotiable in my heart
• and shun barely fits any of my ideal 0 criteria anyway, it's just that his desperation + fury + suffering stats are SO off the charts that the rest of it doesn't matter that much
• admittedly i haven't thought much about pendulumshipping but if i apply my default criteria of shounen protags top and shounen rivals bottom then reiji, being the arc v rival, is not really a 1 either
• hostageshipping is actually like umm 0.7 x 0.1
• serena is not there

OTHER EXAMPLES

jaemin/renjun (nct dream)

PROS

• actually 1 x 0 shipping. TO ME
• my favourite agenda for both of them and my 2pickshipping
• size difference in the right direction
• beautiful visual couple of perfectface x perfectface i love to look at them
• i really like renjun and i really like jaemin
• this exists
• i wish i could explain why jmrn has such a grip on me that i needed two extra ao3 accounts to contain the overflow but i literally don't know why. except that i really like both of them
• WILD CARD: renjun's paper dollisms add a fun extra angle which is that at some point he might flip from mock violence into total docility

CONS

• they literally don't know each other like that. they are coworkers (neutral positive) which as you guys know i am extremely enthusiastic about but it is not conducive to the topic at hand
• i made up this version of their dynamic in my head it doesn't exist. or if it did that was back in like 2019
• also there's no actual killing intent, understandably, since they are real people, but it does put them at a disadvantage compared to the other ships on this list where the 0 for real is trying to murder the 1
• everyone on ao3 (except for my sexy friends) is wrong about them, including me (my views do not represent my views)
• i'm allergic to thinking about them for reasons beyond my comprehension i'm literally like WE CAN'T LET THEM KNOW WE L*KE JMRN also i sometimes get seriously haterised for no reason. well for reasons but the reasons might just be seeing the word r3nm1n. Yes i am jaemin renjun otp all time #1 rpf agenda shipper yes i have r3nm1n muted i exist. anyway that makes it hard for me to have up-to-date thoughts because i don't see them on my tl, which narratively mirrors the way that they do not have up-to-date thoughts about each other

atobe/shishido (prince of tennis)

PROS

• actually 1 x 0 shipping
• size difference in the right direction
• atobe is fully aware that shishido has been haterised about him since first sight and it doesn't bother him at all because atobe is indisputably stronger than shishido
• shishido is literally functioning as atobe's unofficial third-in-command like atobe has installed him in his executive cabinet despite shishido wanting to kill him because atobe the generous trusts shishido's objective ability and is willing to overlook shishido's murderous intent in the interests of achieving their shared goal of hyotei victory
• and when it comes down to it, shishido IS completely loyal to atobe too he just doesn't like to admit it
• WILD CARD: libraman4libramanshipping is inherently hysterically funny

CONS

• far from my favourite agenda for either of them (oshitari or ryoma for atobe, ootori for shishido)
• necessarily precluded after ootori/shishido doubles formation due to their overwhelmingly truelove monogamous marriage and atobe being a generous king who is graciously permitting his subjects to honeymoon outside his kingdom
• atobe is kind of more interested in tezuka like that but tezuka is Go Girl Give Us Nothing-ing him. and also in germany

akai/amuro (detective conan)

feels like cheating to put them on here when i haven't even met one half of this ship yet BUT i have it on good authority that they are perfectly positioned to laser snipe me from the international space station so i want to mention them in advance. i'll probably come back at fill out this section in uhhh 3 months when i unlock them for real. actually i'm going to do a preliminary pros and cons, i keep telling myself that fanart of akai fucking amuro is not lore but well it kind of is. TO ME

PROS

• actually 1 x 0 shipping. NOMINATIVELY DETERMINISTIC 1 X 0 SHIPPING!!
• size and age difference (i think?) in the right direction
• beautiful visual couple who i love to see
• amuro wants to kill akai so bad he refuses to believe akai can even be physically killed by anyone else (this is the extent of my canon knowledge at this point)
• gonna assume they hit most of the criteria on my list because mich and hwa keep 2828'ing at me every time i say anything about it 🧐
• WILD CARD: identity theft is the most romantic thing in the world!!!

CONS

• i might straight up die when i finally fully understand what is going on here like are they more hostageshipping than hostageshipping??

misc

• i would loveeeee to see this dynamic with a het ship (boy 1 x girl 0 to be clear) but despite my pretty extensive knowledge of ya supernatural het romance fiction i can't think of any examples
  • this is my vision of alec/renesmee from twilight but they literally do not exist in canon...
• vermouth is perfectly positioned to be the 1 in question but the only person with that kind of haterism towards her is jodie?? who i don't think is a 0 they would be more like 1 x 0.4-0.6... and ran is not this type of 0. and bourbon is not this type of 0 for vermouth specifically*

* i don't think vermouth and bourbon are fucking anyway, i think it is platonic workplace power dynamics 1 + 0 mutually beneficial mentorship... bourbon is like vermouth's fancy handbag or poisoned ring, vermouth just loves to antagonise people and flirt with people and flirt with people to antagonise them or to antagonise other people... not to go off on huge tangent but i think the idea of vermouth leveraging bourbon against rye by making it seem like she and bourbon are fucking because bourbon is sweet with vermouth but viciously hateristic towards rye is really funny. she doesn't even dislike rye like that (he's not HER silver bullet) she just likes to stir up drama for fun

** if r63 bourbon i think she and vermouth WOULD be fucking though

*** this is all completely baseless speculation since i haven't met the bourbon in question but fanart of bourbon and vermouth looking blonde and beautiful and expensive and killeristic together can be lore too

**** i think vermouth is less interested in brat taming and more interested in 1. Submission anyway

• also this isn't the only type of 1 x 0 dynamic i enjoy it's just my favourite, i am also open to this type of 1 x 0s who don't need to be railroaded into submission (jeno, ran, mori, carly, etc)

rt myself: Me when i turn into a malevolent grudge spirit hellbent on killing everyone who follows the incorrect t/b order for my ships

腐女子除霊師オサム is a cute and funny parody oneshot manga that briefly went viral on jtwitter a while ago about a couple of fujoshi exorcists who must battle the vengeful spirit of a fujoshi seeking to slaughter everyone who ships her otp in the opposite order to her. and unironically that is me. i am the fujoshis coming back from the dead as the manifestation of pure evil fuelled by my hatred for people who ship my ships in the wrong order. anyway this is an extremely ill-adjusted post about my very strict top/bottom preferences, i am sorry to my switch rights activist friends who i respect but that will never be me:

( 1800 i love stable societies )