#feixiao

This ship is very much a Badass/Badass/Badass ship to me, but it's also about the tension between duty and personal desire. I genuinely can't imagine any of these characters leaving their positions in canon just to be with the others. So, it's about the brief chances to slip away and spend a night together, stolen moments where they all pretend they don't have any other cares in the world, and the goodbyes where they hope the next time they meet won't be on opposite sides because they all belong to different factions with their own goals that only sometimes overlap.

I also know deep in my heart that Kafka is a nickname person, and ngl, I had to figure out a good nickname for Feixiao because Himeko easily shortens to "Hime", which conveniently is a Japanese honorific for a princess or other noble woman and Wiki also says it initially referred to any beautiful woman. All in all, it's an incredibly perfect nickname with layers.

Feixiao doesn't shorten nearly as neatly though 😭. I ended up settling on "Birdie" for her because she's the Merlin's Claw of the Xianzhou Yaoqing, so it refers to her accomplishments there in an affectionate, maybe somewhat teasing, tone. It also kind of fits with her name, which the characters roughly translate to Flying Sky as far as I know ← does not read Chinese, has the power of internet language dictionaries on my side

Himeko also canonically makes incredibly bitter coffee. Literally the only people who can canonically drink it other than her are Dan Heng, Pela, and Boothill. However, I have decided that Feixiao loves Himeko's coffee because the image of Feixiao coming home from an early morning run to be offered coffee by Himeko while Kafka frantically shakes her head at her in the background, and then loving it, much to Kafka's horrified dismay (Oh no, there are two of them) amuses me.

There aren't any particular tropes that are classics for this ship yet because it is just me. This is one of my pool noodles. It could be your pool noodle too if you want 👀 Some tropes I think they are particularly shaped, however:

 Case Fic, Mystery Squad, Let them run around being badasses together 

 Pirate AU – Feixiao has a sword, a gun, and a battleaxe she's halfway there on weapons alone 

 Rivals/Enemies to Lovers – Different factions have different goals, but Kafka in particular belongs to a faction wanted by like half the galaxy. She is a criminal, and Feixiao is the general/leader of her ship. Kafka's faction is also the faction most at odds with Himeko's faction on the surface 

 Coffeeshop AU – As mentioned, Himeko makes her own coffee for better or for worse, let the shenanigans begin 

 Forced Proximity – This is a science fiction canon with travel between planets, the world is your oyster on getting them all stuck in a room together 

 Angst – Injuries, Kafka's potential issues with believing this good thing will last, duty above love, character death, long-distance pining, the increasing fear and dread over one or more of them being uncontactable for reasons unknown, the list goes on 

 Werewolf AU – Feixiao has a canonical moon rage thing going on 

 Domesticity, Curtainfic – To be fair, I think every ship is a perfect shape for domesticity. I just love writing characters being domestically fluffy together okay. Love is stored in waking up next to each other and building IKEA furniture at 3AM