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unifycurlyfry · 1 month ago

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Why do I ship Soudabuki?: A very long jumbled ramble 🎸⚙️

Well, like anyone else, I ship them because I think they’re perfect for each other.

One of my favorite things about Soudabuki is the fact they didn’t have interest in each other at first. Hell, In Kazuichi’s relationship chart Ibuki’s section says “Not interested!” And obviously, Kazuichi had his eyes so on Sonia he wouldn’t even consider anything else. They didn’t think of each other in any specific way. They had pretty little interaction in the game, so exploring their dynamic is more so taking their individual personalities and backstories and clashing them together to see how they’d interact. In my belief, soudabuki does not start thinking of each other romantically until post-canon. Hell, even platonically. I mean, they got along well enough in the game, but they weren’t “best friends.” I think as they’re grieving and processing everything post-canon, they find out that their backstories are so similar and how they process things and who they are as people go together well and they’re surprised at how well they understand each other. So they slowly start having more deep talks together, become friends, and then eveerrr so slowly these feelings crawl in; short and simple at first until it turns into a full blown, out of nowhere crush

I like the concept of Kazuichi being “uncomfortable” by Ibuki because he won’t admit it even in his own head that she is everything he wants to be.

His wary of her stems from jealousy, it so does. Because Kazuichi spent his whole life being something he’s not and constantly trying to cater to other’s beliefs of what he should be and shouldn’t be. He got picked and teased for the things he loved most, his mechanics, and his looks. He changed himself to appeal to others, not for himself. Everything he does is to be a people pleaser or prove a point to himself. He is constantly desperate to be useful and to be good. He wants to be that cool guy people like and can rely on. He gets upset and shuts himself out when something he says or does prove otherwise.

But, Ibuki doesn’t have that issue, at least not anymore. She’s her true self, and she’s proudly herself no matter what people have said about her. She says she got a lot of comments from people too, just like him, but she went about it the exact opposite way from him; instead of taking it and shelling up in herself, she became who she truly wanted to be and is unapologetically herself. She’s happy with her hair, her piercings, her music, everything some people don’t like.

And I think Kazuichi takes this as some sort of attack. It’s uncomfortable looking at what is frankly a mirror of your ideal self in someone else. She’s like him, and that makes him uncomfortable, because everything he tries to bottle, she opens up. She makes him face everything he was trying to avoid. Which is why one of my fav parts about soudabuki is Ibuki cracking open his shell, and them being their loud energetic selves together. She understands him. And he understands her. Ibuki mentions having been in a band that was not her style and so she left. They didn’t understand the music she wanted to do.

I think this was mentioned somewhere too that I cannot exactly remember, but people were kind of scared of her. She’s flashy and loud. She makes music people deem as “scary.” Ibuki, in her own way, is also an outcast. They find comfort in being “outcasts” together. Their backstories are so similar in that sense, of changing your looks and who you are because people didn’t accept you. They’d make each other less scared of the confusing aspect of change. Ibuki, despite being her loud extrovert self, is so desperate for people to like her; like what she does. If you click on her cabin after her death, it is a jumbled mess of saying something along the lines of “please just listen to one song!” They’re SO similar it drives me nuts. Them figuring that fact out is so. God. I think once Kazuichi starts to understand Ibuki better, and the fact she is like him, he takes more of a liking to her music or at least supports it. Let’s be real, the entire cast of SDR2 apart from Hiyoko was a little rude to her and her passion, lmfao.

Ibuki’s there every step of the way as Kazuichi figures himself out and is so overwhelmingly supportive, that he’s a little less scared every step. She supports him as he wants to bring elements of his “nerdy look back.” She supports him as he wants to get more piercings. She supports him as he starts to get more confident. And vice versa. He supports her as she’s questioning what type of music she wants to do, he supports her as she’s becoming more comfortable in not being so happy and energetic all the time, he supports her in all her different styles.

While this is relatable to many of the characters in the cast, I do think of a deep conversation between them both about remembering being remnants and using what they love most for awful doings. Kazuichi finally fulfilled his dream of building a rocket, but it was used to kill. Ibuki finally fulfilled her dream of playing music on stage to a huge crowd of people, but it was used for despair. I’ve thought of them gently holding hands and Kazuichi chuckles crudely, mumbling something about “We’re both terrible people finding comfort in our own terribleness, huh?” And they laugh, despite it all. It’s a melancholic laugh.

Before anything, they are best friends. They become really good friends before thinking of romance. I’ve often described them as “Best friends who kiss.” Moving on to how they’d act as a couple, their love languages match so well.

Kaz likes receiving physical affection and words of affirmation the most. His least favorite is acts of service.Ibuki likes receiving quality time and physical affection the most. Her least favorite is words of affirmation.

Ibuki is a very physically affectionate person. She's always latching onto Kaz and touching him in some sort of way even if it’s just tapping him on the arm repeatedly as a fidget thing, grabbing his cheeks and peppering him in kisses and sudden hugs and holding his hand while bouncing up and down. Plus cuddling is one of her favorite things ever. Even just to friends she’s always touching them.

She’s a big believer in quality time. I believe their relationship is very lax, as in they don’t get upset when they’re spending more time with the others than each other for a couple of days; Kaz and Ibuki likes to run off and do whatever separately a lot, but the moments where they’re spending time together just the two of them laughing their lungs out or having deep talks or doing shenanigans all mean a lot to her, or rather to both of them. Laughing is also her love language. She’s giggling in every situation and her giggles are almost just her saying “I love you.”

She also feeds off the feeling of Kaz being in love with her if that makes any sense; like the feeling of him being flustered and happy and blushy rubs off on her. Hence why, for example, she sexually pleasures Kaz more than the vice versa, and why she’s perfectly okay and loves being the one that guides them in stages of their relationship most of the time. Individuality is like her entire thing and I think that she doesn’t feel any loss of her individuality paired with Kaz.

Kazuichi really likes giving gifts. Hell, making things is his whole thing. Ibuki does not show her love with gifts and is a terrible gift giver, but boy does Kaz express lots of love by gifts and she loves every single one of them. I think she’s one of those people who puts extreme sentimental value on everything, and so every ring he has made her is kept pristinely clean and organized and the purple flower he spotted and held up to her hair and said “it matches your hair” is long since dead yet still in her drawer. She loves everything she gets and never takes it for granted or throws it to the side.

Kazuichi is someone that needs a lot of reassurance. He’d be that meme where it’s like waking up the partner in the middle of the night and going “do you like like me?” and the partner responds back with “we’ve been dating for five years,” haha. He needs someone who is not annoyed by that fact, and I cannot see Ibuki ever getting annoyed or off-put by it. She is more than happy to give it to him. So while he refuses it, words of affirmation are important to keep Kaz knowing he’s loved. He gets blushy and embarrassed, but so so giddy. On the other hand, if Kaz ever tried to say some of the things Ibuki says to him, she’d fake a gag and/or laugh in his face. To say she never enjoys a little sap though sometimes would be a lie.

They’re a very physical affectionate couple and they both thrive off of it. Ibuki jumping on him and peppering his skin in kisses all over, holding hands, cuddling every night, having sexual intimacy fairly often, their knees touching as they’re sitting, a hand on a shoulder, etc. Ibuki is a loud and proud “toucher” and Kazuichi is a flustered mess “toucher,” but gets more used to it and confident over time. He went from never wanting to engage in PDA to liking it.

“Acts of service” is not too relevant in their relationship. Kazuichi mostly doesn’t care to receive it, as he’s pretty stingy on who touches the things he is working on and gets extremely in the zone when he is working. Ibuki doesn’t have many things he could even service her towards besides always being willing to fix a speaker or guitar. They both are… kind of slobs. If it weren’t for TeruTeru, they’d be eating junk food always and if it weren’t for others on the island their cabins would be a mess. An organized mess, but a mess.

I think they’d have a lot of fun together. While the other members of the cast would need to take some convincing to whatever shenanigan they want to pull that day, they would jump on it right away with each other. It often leads to cartoonish disasters. It would be funny for other people in the cast to be like “Oh my god what are Kazuichi and Ibuki doing today.”

There is so much laughing between the two. So, so much. Laughing is their main love language. Stupid jokes, playing pranks, laughing over stupid faces or over nothing. Ibuki finds Kazuichi very entertaining, especially. She teases him and plays with him all out of love. At first, Kazuichi took some offense to her giggling all the time in certain scenarios, but once he understood that was the way she showed love, he loved it and understood it.

They pick up so many new hobbies together. Kazuichi makes Ibuki a motorcycle, and she loves it and forces Kazuichi to ride it with her, but unfortunately his motion sickness makes it not a very good experience. As a solution, Kazucihi makes them skateboards. And they have so much fun with failing and trying new tricks and riding around. They would try anything and everything. Kazuichi picks up art, and Ibuki does it with him despite being terrible and not really having the drive to get actually good at it. But creating little characters together heals their inner children. I think Kazuichi actually became the tattoo artist and piercer of the island. He has a very steady hand due to his mechanic work and he already had some art skill building blueprints, so it’s not a far-fetched hobby for him. Ibuki gets so many tattoos and piercings by him.

They’re both, uh, a little perverted. They were bonding over their lustful thoughts and comments over the girls in bikinis in that one scene. I’ve always said Ibuki is more perverted than him, just not shown quite as much since she didn’t have someone she had her eyes on in the game. So in that sense, they’re perfect for each other because I think anyone else would not… appreciate such comments as much or like it as much. Don’t get me wrong, I think Kazuichi “fixes” himself post-canon, understanding that the things he said to Sonia and that whole obsession was wrong. Like said before, he just wants to be a good guy, and I think understanding that he was being a creep would lowkey devastate him and he’d obviously stop. But still. They’re two horny people put together.

This is a more silly reason, but I’ve tended to not ship Kazuichi as much with men just because I think being with a woman is… good for him? Lmfao? That sounds silly but I wouldn’t want to put him with a man as a solution to his accidental-misogynistic comments. Not to say Ibuki “fixes” that aspect of him because she doesn’t, it’s a thing he has to improve on his own. Also I like soudam and sounidai, so It’s not like I’m against that at all.

They both find each other attractive. Ibuki starts to notice the little crinkle in his nose when he snorts/laughs (which she loves the sound of), the ponytail he puts in more post-canon is something she’s into on him, she canonically likes the look of him in his cute glasses, he has a perfect amount of muscles in his arms, his firm torso, his big hands. Once Kazuichi starts seeing Ibuki in a romantic light, he doesn’t know how he didn’t notice how drop dead gorgeous she was. It makes him breathless. Her short hair post-canon is cute on her, her whole face expresses her joy and it’s so pretty, her skin is soft, her outfits are awesome, the different dyes in her hair are sick and admirable, and her eyes are big and colorful. Her body is perfect. Often, Ibuki gets cuteness aggression from him at random times, and she just needs to jump on him and give him so much love. Normally when Kazuichi gets those random moments of “cuteness aggression” (more just being stunned by her beauty and her everything) he just stands there mouth agape.

Kazuichi is not the best at comforting, but it’s perfect for Ibuki. Post-canon, she has more quiet sad days. The last thing she needs is advice, or therapy talk, or pity. She just needs someone there. And Kazuichi being pretty bad with words is in fact a blessing in this case. He holds her and cracks lame jokes that make her giggle through her sniffling. He calms her down by rubbing her back or arm. He allows her to use his tank top as a tissue. In Kazuichi’s case, Ibuki sweet talks him when he’s all weepy and upset. Kazuichi feels comfortable expressing his complete vulnerability to her and Ibuki gives him little head kisses as she softly “baby talks” him or just sweetly says things that make him happy. Again, if Kazuichi did this to her, she’d hate it, but Ibuki loves doing it to Kazuichi. There’s no embarrassment in it. She says very mushy gross things and she makes him know not to be embarrassed of needing it.

I think there is this thought that Ibuki would find anything romance cringy and unenjoyable when I don’t believe that to be the case. I think they’d have a lot of fun figuring out what they could do for dates around the island, she likes being gently woke up in the morning with arms around her and kisses on her shoulder with mumblings about how she is beautiful, she likes kissing and cuddling (a lot), the little metal flowers Kazuichi makes for her makes her smile when she walks past them. She would however hate the stuff like, candlelight dinner or rose petals on the bed. Thankfully, Kazuichi wouldn’t enjoy that stuff so much either.

I talk a lot about Kazuichi being all nervous and shy but Ibuki has those rare moments too. His compliments normally go “your hair is cool” with her responding, “hell yeah it is!!” and “your new tattoo is sweet” “i know right?!!” but ever so often he says something like “your smile makes me so happy…” with so much sincerity and affection in his voice and eyes that Ibuki’s face becomes pink and she lifts the two front strands of her hair to her face as she looks to the side and giggles and squeals. And when Kazuichi either 1. points it out shyly 2. jokingly makes fun of her for it it just makes her redder as she hides in her hair and keeps giggling and kicking her feet.

I said this before, but they’re still their individual selves with each other and that makes especially Ibuki thrive. If Ibuki felt like she was losing herself in a relationship she’d be out of there ASAP.

Ibuki refuses to let Kazuichi shut himself out. Which was annoying to him, at first. Whenever Kazuichi gets upset he tends to just completely walk away from the conversation and go hole himself in his cabin as shown in the game multiple times, which isn’t good for him. He can’t keep running. He needs to express what makes him upset and why. He needs to let himself get close to people. Ibuki is always there. She makes him open up whether he likes it or not. He becomes less annoyed by this and realizes how much she has helped. I like that in the Kazuichi manga, Ibuki is the one to knock on his door and check up on him multiple times. Kazuichi shooed her away mostly. He’s stupid.

Kazuichi becomes a drummer which makes Ibuki ecstatic. He was averse to it at first, but when he tried it, it was like something awakened in him and he understood. He gets into it pretty quickly. And once he decides he wants to get good at something, he will not stop. He is constantly on those things for a couple weeks; Ibuki having to pull him by the ear to get him to sleep. She gets it though, because Kazuichi has had to be the one to pull her ear on multiple occasions when she gets lost in her music or skating or anything else. He releases all his pent up anger on those things and I think that makes him understand her loud music a whole lot better to the point of enjoyment towards it. They have a lot of fun cooking up whatever in that studio. He builds her a good music station, by the way.

Speaking of having fun together, I think they both teach each other how to have fun when there is no point in it. As in, Ibuki wants to show people her music. Kazuichi has always built things solely for other people. When they’re on this island, aside from Kazuichi’s work, there is no point in doing the things they do. They have to re-learn to love what they already did. And they do so together. Kazuichi learns how to have fun without the basis that he’s fixing something for someone. Ibuki learns how to have fun without the basis of showing other people. They do it because they love it and only because they love it. I mean, I do believe that after a few years, a lot of the cast does work for Future Foundation and they have to go to the mainland for various missions though.

Their relationship is not one of jealousy. I think the entire cast has a bond that toes the line between what platonic and romantic means, so being jealous would be stupid. Kazuichi gets a bit more jealous than her in a situation where a Future Foundation member flirts with her, but other than that on the island, their relationship is chill. They can go days of not having time just for the two of them and not be phased. They love their best friends. They cuddle and sometimes kiss their best friends. I’ve joked before that soudabuki is a dynamic where they both understand they have small baby crushes on other people and tease each other about it. Kazuichi being all giddy and excited to hang out with Hajime and Ibuki teasing him like a first grader about it. Ibuki outwardly says she'd jump Peko’s bones if she had the chance. They get it and it’s mutual, lmfao.

I won’t go into detail here but their sex is very understanding and comfortable and vulnerable. And also very silly. The things they say during it are very cringy to anyone else. It’s fun.

I like imagining cute scenarios with them. Them making out behind the beach house, fighting over the blanket in bed, cuddling and snoozing together, falling asleep in the bath together, giggling in the shower, doing their random hobbies together, pulling pranks on their friends, Kazuichi picking her up and her squealing. Many, many others.

And of course, they have the dynamic of “girlboss x flustered guy who’s madly in love with her,” but I tend to stray away from describing them as such cause it makes their dynamic feel so surface level when it is not (I just spent 6 pages rambling why they’re good together so, LMfao.) But it is true. I like Kazuichi being like a dog and following her around like a lost puppy. His face becomes so red as she teases him and calls him cute. He’s scared to touch her and gets so flustered and embarrassed. Ibuki finds it entertaining and charming.

The way I think they get together is cute. It doesn’t involve an actual confession. They were on the beach, doing various things like making sand castles and splashing and running around and eventually they collapsed on the sand laughing and Ibuki was laying on his chest. The giggling dies down and the air just gets tense, and they’re looking at each other, and then they’re softly kissing. Their teeth clack a bit due to Ibuki smiling so brightly, but it was a sweet kiss. Once they part after 2 or 3 more kisses, Ibuki starts giggling again and lays her head on his chest whilst Kazuichi is looking at the sky completely awestruck. They don’t address it because Ibuki kissed him as if it was the most natural thing ever that they have been doing for a while, and Kazuichi can barely get sleep because the kiss keeps coming up in his mind and he stuffs his face into his pillow, face red and his heart going crazy. He eventually cannot take it anymore and goes on a huge sudden ramble when they were hanging out in her cabin, like, “So, what are we? I-I mean, like, you know. Um. We kissed. Which was okay! Good, even, I liked it! Um… but do you, do you l-like me? Ah… I don’t know….” and Ibuki has to shut him up as she tilts her head and is like “I thought we were dating?” and Kazuichi just has to process that and he blinks at her. They start fighting over the fact that this was never a thing that was established and they’re both blushing (more on Kazuichi’s side, he’s a flustered mess in this moment) and they keep going back and forth bickering about this until it just gets funny and they solidify what their relationship is there.

Plus, Ibuki had been so obviously in love with him and expressing that loudly long before that moment, he is just oblivious. She would run up and wrap her arms around his shoulders tightly and squeal “I love Kazu-chan!” and snuggle into his neck and he just thought it was her being her. In his defense, she is a very loud lover to everybody. It is hard to differentiate it.

They piss each other off a lot, lovingly. It’s one of my favorite aspects about them. They’re both very competitive people so playing something like Mario Kart with them is a loud debacle. Ibuki pisses him off on purpose by small things like flicking his nose to see his reaction. They get into long stupid talks about a hypothetical question and fight over it for like two hours. If you know what the “if your leg gets cut off” meme is, that is exactly how they talk to each other. They share a brain cell and that is love.

In conclusion Kazuichi and Ibuki are in love and they kiss each other and have a very fun time. They’re so perfect for each other that it surprises me they’re a rarer pair honestly! I don’t mind though, shipping a rarepair is super fun. It makes getting content with them and getting people to like them so much more exciting. All I wish is to spread the amount of joy soudabuki gives me on the daily. Shipping them is so fun because they’re so stupid. They’re a very silly pairing.

Also, while I enjoy other ships with them, they are my main pairing. I’m not a big poly shipper in my post-canon, and so like, the others are either taken or not my favorite. Hajime is with Nagito, Peko is with Fuyuhiko, Sonia is with Gundham. Bandaid is a cute ship and I enjoy the content of it but it never really latched onto me. Sounidai is super cute too but again doesn’t connect with me on a super personal level. And again, my post-canon cast is all basically one big queer platonic relationship, so people being in a relationship is not this huge divide between platonic and romantic.

thank you for reading!! 💜💚

#soudabuki #danganronpa #sdr2 #ibuki mioda #kazuichi souda

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