#though I don't like VK itself all that much but kaze has such a chemistry

[thoughtfullyluckyperson]

Oh wow. I thought everyone forgot about VK completely nowadays and there was not enough kaze amvs to start with but suddenly I stumbled onto this. Another beloved ship of past resurfacing is just what I need lol

(this one is old but great too, and these)

UPD Now I’m overcome with an urge to spill my kaze feelings, lol. I’ll do it under the cut in the same post just in case.

So, I remember first watching VK when 1st season of anime was aired. I have a soft spot for shoujo so I sometimes watch new arrivals. Honestly, it was not great. I liked the aesthetics, the music, creepy Alice ending, the vampire lore was pretty neat. Love Hino’s style too, her art is pretty. But the main conflict, oh god. A girl can’t decide if she wants the brunet or the blond, the mysterious and mighty one or the rebellious and tragic one. Her kinda-brother or her adoptive brother. Both are fixated on her and jealous of each other and she just can’t make up her mind. The brunet is better, he saved her! Or no, she can’t let the blond go, too! Or no, the brunet it is! No, the blond! Oh man, such intrigue, such complexity, much wow. Color me interested (not). 

It doesn’t help that the girl is completely dull, spineless and lacks personality. She is almost a reader’s placeholder, some “y/n” like in these character/reader ficlets. I like her design tho, especially when her eyes are not the size of half of her face. But it’s really unclear what these two guys even see in her to obsess over her so much. She’s not the most beautiful, not the most spirited and certainly not the most intelligent. It just looks like a standard “this badass hero was once a poor lonely kicked puppy and the heroine petted him at the right moment, so now he’s in love with her forever” trope with both of them. Boring. Now, I don’t hate her too and actually dislike it when kaze fics start painting her as cruel and bitchy. She’s a (mostly) nice girl, just weak and uninteresting heroine. I have lots of shoujo heroines I like, like Ouran’s Haruhi or Kamisama’s Nanami or Skip Beat’s Kyoko or Yamato Nadeshiko’s Sunako. Nevermind their guys, I would marry them myself lol. But Yuuki... Only heroines of anime-made-after-otome-games like various Amnesias and Diabolic Lovers actually manage to be more bland. (Though I must admit, the harem ending was pretty bold of her, ahaha. Not every day you see a shoujo heroine fucking all of her love interests and even birthing kids for them all. But why half measures, the real threesome would be even bolder!) And with that, both male leads actually have personality and are vivid and unique enough to be recognizable.

So I was watching don’t-remember-which-episode and then Kaname suddenly decided to feed Zero his blood while Zero was in chains and suffering and both were professing their eternal mutual hatred and “it’s only for her”s and Zero was making these faces and erotic feeding noises. I laughed almost to the point of falling out of my chair and predicted lots of m/m fics for this one (I was not wrong). It’s pretty rare for shoujo with a female lead, actually, to have the most popular ship made of male leads. Love triangles are present in a lot of shoujo mangas. Like, Skip Beat has Ren and Sho rivaling for Kyoko, or Hana Yori Dango has Tsukasa and Rui. But Vampire Knight is literally the only shoujo I can remind where there are actually tons of fics, arts, doujinshis for the ship of two rivaling male leads (it’s actually the most popular ship in terms of fan content). Typically shoujo fandoms tend to leave one of the leads for the heroine and then pair the spares. But not here. That’s the combination of weak heroine and interesting heroes and lots of contact and tension between said heroes at work, I guess. 

When you look at it from Yuuki’s shipping point, it’s mostly annoying - she’s a damsel in distress, they’re her defenders, she does whatever useless stuff and pines after them in turns, they’re there for her to choose from and show off their attractiveness to the audience, also for the audience to quarrel about who’s the best hasbando and should get the main prize. When you see it from kaze shipping point, it’s a powerhouse of delicious conflicts, tensions and kinks. It’s, ofc, totally non-canon but all the better for it. They’re the opposites in almost everything, coloring, tempers, upbringing, social stances. Both have tragic past. Kaname is on the top of the vampire world yet utterly alone, both adored and hated for his power and never, never on equal footing with anyone. Zero is an outcast, a pariah of both vampire and vampire hunter worlds, the last heir of great hunter dynasty turned into a mockery of his kind, self-hating and dishonored and slowly falling into bloodlust madness. Kaname is almost immortal and Zero’s days are so very numbered. 

Kaname considers Zero an eyesore and Zero considers Kaname a monster. Kaname is the chess master and Zero is his chess piece (a knight, ofc). Kaname as pureblood has almost thrall-like influence over vampires but it doesn’t work on Zero, he’s the only one who has the gall to constantly spite him and talk to him without any regard for his superior stance. Both are kinda free of society though - Kaname because he’s royalty and Zero because he couldn’t give less fucks. Kaname played a role in Zero’s family demise. Zero tried to kill Kaname with a table knife as a ten-years-old or so during their first meeting. Zero’s beloved weapon is actually Kaname’s (but he doesn’t know). They have their sights set on one girl and are both despising and tolerating each other because of her and doing it with sparkling passion. Kaname’s pure blood is precious yet he gives it to the lowest of low of vampire hierarchy and his rival with that. Zero can either drink the blood of enemy and be indebted to him or forfeit his sanity. Kaname is 80 lvl master manipulator but Zero is not weak and can stand his ground, and there is a certain mutual respect underneath all that antagonism. Both tend to be martyrs, both can be savage. Oh, and (deep into later spoilers which aren’t known in the anime and missing in old fics) Kaname is a thousands years old vampire who went into eternal slumber after seeing his first-great-love kill herself - guess what, she killed herself to create vampire hunters, Kiryuus are her kinda-descendants and Zero looks pretty similar to her. And Kaname in turn looks like, well, male version of Yuuki lol.

Not a cute wholesome casual ship but hella intense one. Add all the erotic blood sucking, “I’m in love with her, I’m sure, but why do I feel so strongly around him of all people” tropes and 100500 blood bond fanons to the mix and you’re set, welcome aboard! Such a pity that the fandom is half-dead, really, but it produced some pretty good fics when it was alive. (If you don’t know where to start, start with “Crimson Door” by Blackened Wing, that’s a first fic of long series and the series are fandom classics, it’s on ao3 and ffnet; beware that it begins as a m-f-m threesome but it’s kaze at heart anyway from the start. And here i have a few more recs)