#sorters

10: Baddbyrne - Most ships involving case victims fall flat for me but there's just something about this that feels integral to the story for me. It paints so much of Kay and Badd's relationship in a new light, and Faraskye too! Also I just feel like you can feel their dynamic and it's just that good. Maybe that's just seagiri

9: Lanamia - Intellectual attraction. Sorry Ema nobody believes you. These two never even can interact on-screen and yet their dynamic is palpable. It's sweet. It's tragic. It's flirtatious. It's emotional. And it's all picked up from crumbs. But also just intellectual attraction. How. What.

8: Narumitsu - The gold standard. The classic. The tried and true. The one everyone knows and assumes it's just a rival tension thing. And then you find out more about them and you just go okay. Right. Uh huh. It genuinely is such a powerful ship and it's also a fucking mess. Just complete disaster sometimes. I love it but I hate that the popular yaoi is actually that good

7: Junithena - Narumitsu parallel but yuried. Childhood friends who still feel so connected even after all these years, who never stop caring about each other. One lived in a research lab, the other in the woods. And yet they were inseparable. The sun and moon. And then you try putting Junie with Apollo??????? Huh???????

6: Franmaya - The most popular yuri ship for a reason. Like it feels so out of nowhere and then you think about it and it all clicks. And I like to think they have a similar experience. Maya thinks Franziska's mean and Franziska thinks Maya's annoying! Until eventually that falls away and they recognize how similar they are. Lost girls burdened by a family legacy. I still like to think Pearl lashing out at Franziska in 3-5 made her immediately reconsider her stance on Maya and she was like "I'm sorry 8 year old I will no longer be mean to your cousin. Actually she's kind of cute. Oh my god. What."

5: Pearlthena - Surprised this beat junithena, but in a better world we wouldn't need to choose. I reblogged a post yesterday that says all I would need to here, but like. Traumatized girls who work well together and comfort each other and are jealous of each other and beat people up. Turnabout Reclaimed really sold me on this. They're goooood.

4: Susahao - Gay Membami. Like genuinely how else do you read these two. Rei keeps flirting with her after she realizes who she is. Of course, I do feel like Rei gets kind of turned into Susato's Girlfriend, and there's more to her than that, but like. Yeah. I especially like when Rei jumps to the witness stand to confess to keeping the poison theft a secret, because I really feel like she was worried she could lose Susato's trust. Most defendants don't do that even if it hurt their case. As seen from Nikolina and Gina, Susato can flip from gay for a girl to "Get fucking real right now." in a second. Also that scene where they throw Menimemo is fucking awesome.

3: Ginasusa - Sooo underrated. Their dynamic is genuinely so sweet and they're so happy to see each other in tgaa2. Also I've said this before but Susato considers the peephole trick to be deeply against her entire code as a legal assistant all for Gina's sake. She was willing to literally throw it all away into the sea forever for her. And then she breaks Gina's defense mechanism against Ryu's defense by telling her she can't bear to leave her like this. That her trust in Gina, along with Ryu and Iris's, means more than Gina believing she's not worth it. And Gina instantly breaks. Just like I don't know what else to say here. Oh my god.

2: Ginasusahao - What if those last two paragraphs were combined. And also hey Rei if you like your girls a little masc I think you'll just break when you see Gina. And then she'll get flustered from you getting flustered. And Susato will be flustered at both. yuri feedback loop.

Honorable Mention: Since those last three paragraphs were one paragraph, shoutout to the ships that didn't quite make it. Franema for being a delightfully volatile mix of two temperamental women who want to be taken seriously so bad, homumiko for being Holmes and Watson with daughters and a kickass theme song, asoryuu for "I'm not doing this for you. I'm doing this for the truth.", starrskye for messy messy exes, goulstrade for being weird in a cute way ("me doing whatever my coroner wife wants"), and aurametis for being actually canon.

1: Faraskye - Has fundamentally changed something in my being. Not even just fave AA ship, this is my favorite ship period. And I have a myriad of posts about them, but I'll see what I can fit. Basically: ema and the yatagarasu are somehow thematically intrinsically linked. She literally steals the first minute she's on a crime scene. AAI era Ema thinks Kay is so cool and believes in her cause and Kay loves her passion and energy. Both of them trying so hard to fight or fix the legal world for their legacies, even through everyone's doubt, but they can believe in each other!!! And then fail!! And then find each other again post-timeskip and bring those old passions out of each other and finally have someone to laugh with and stay strong with. I don't have the words. Please refer to my previous posts. They also have a lingering doom over them from baddbyrne and lanamia parallels. But overall they're just so sweet and hopeful and make me feel strong. No matter what they can pick each other up when they fall, even when they both lose their grip. A soft light bite of a Swiss roll and the loud crunch of snackoos. The treasured moon and the beautiful sun. That's right they have sun and moon motifs too. Detective and thief but they're secretly both in on it. But mostly just. Two girls giggling and smiling about gadgets. Two girls staring into each other's eyes at their lowest and feeling that they have to keep their resolve strong. But especially! What if my whimsy and jadedness were lesbians and partners in crime. That'd be pretty fucking awesome. Holy shit that was long.

Uhhh here's the rest of the top 50 bye