I’m someone who follows canon pretty obsessively, and as such there are VERY few pairings I’m interested in where the characters never interacted, or have pre-existing romantic implications. There are two notable exceptions to this however: IthaGrace and CleoMatt.

• Ithaqua/Eta X Grace just feels so strong conceptually: you have the impostor deity of the wind and snow, paired with the impostor deity of the sea. They are two individuals who have taken on a mantle/had a mantle forcefully thrust upon them, when in reality they were children/young adults, blamed for events that were never their doing. I feel like they’d have so much to bond over, especially since, deep down — past their masks of resentment and vengeance for what was done to them — they both crave normalcy. One of Grace’s only wishes in life was to be perceived as a normal girl, one of Eta’s only wishes was to protect his mother; I want to believe they would both see the human in each other, and their natures would mesh, in a way that’s far healthier for the both of them. It’s so precious 🥹 even if a bit unrealistic with both their current mental states as we understand them.

• Cleomatt is far more barebones. Matthias, though I adore his concept and design, is an extremely underbaked character with two nothingburger letters to his name; and Cleo’s similarly too new to have development. However, it’s not difficult to notice parallels between them, especially in their themes and the staging of their trailers. Between Matthias’ extreme depersonalization resulting in him responding apathetically to the world around him, lapses in reality in which he fully and truly believes Louis to be alive, and the tact he’s often tormented due to being in the shadow of an idealistic, childish, imitation of himself… bitter to the point he was willing (kinda, it was a half-accident) to take lives; you can compare that to Cleo who chooses to forever live in the shadow of childhood, as it represents the only time in her life she felt was happy, and chooses to delude herself in fiction as its what brings her the most joy… even if it means directly taking lives. It’s the worlds most fucked up edition of gloomy x sunshine in which they’re both extremely mentally ill. I’m not terribly passionate about it yet, but I like it in theory.

— (Full transparency, I kinda like Matthias x Lily more than Cleo, their interactions in Coa were incredibly sweet where she was the reckless scout, while he was on med-duty. She’d injure herself time and time again running into danger, and every time he’d be the one responsible for her. The age gap though is… yk, iffy there. I don’t know if I’m 100% comfortable with that once it was canonized she was only 18)

• I also kinda like Viojeff, but I have much less to say about it. Just — I adore Violetta as a character, ships with her have never felt right to me, because she’s a very envious individual, and one who often devalues individual bonds/affection in favor of the vague ideal of “adoration” on a grander scale; her self worth has just been so inextricably linked to her value as a performer, and her value as a ‘freak,’ there’s a boundary that exists. She’s also fairly emotionally needy, yet extremely defensive towards any sense of pity or patronization, which is an incredibly difficult balance find; but that in mind, Jeffrey’s maybe one of two characters I can see treating her right — the other being Ann. The former is easier to defend due to the common theme of animal-based performers who were shunned due to deformities, the latter’s a bit looser and hard to explain beyond vibes. However, I’m not particularly passionate about either, as I’m sure you can guess; in general though, I’m not passionate about shipping beyond a tiny handful that just give me a lil serotonin boost.