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content warning: this page has danganronpa spoilers
celesgami is the ship between celestia ludenberg and byakuya togami from danganronpa. It isn't a very popular ship in the danganronpa fandom compared to other ships such as naegiri or ishimondo, as the two don't interact that much throughout the events of the game (they've only interacted with each other 4 times) and as thus is considered a rarepair. Despite that though: i just so happen to be obsessed with this ship, even making my own fankid oc for the pairing and i shall explain why i like it so much.
If you think about it, byakuya and celeste actually have a lot in common. Both characters have talents relating to money management (celeste being the ultimate gambler and byakuya being the ultimate affluent progeny) and just generally have themes of money and status, both are canonically fluent in french, treat others harshly and are portrayed throughout their screentime as smart and logical. Plus, in this image from chapter 3, which is a visual representation of celeste's life dream: the guy in the foreground very suspiciously looks a LOT like byakuya without his glasses.
If we are to assume this is an accurate representation of celeste's mind and not just there to give a vague idea of what celeste's thoughts are, than it probably is!! At that point in the game's story: everyone had been stuck in hope's peak for several weeks, and it was established at the beginning of the game that junko blocked all contact from the outside world, barracading the windows and confiscating everyone's belongings (with mukuro, disguised as junko, even exclaiming that she doesn't have her phone anymore) so that meant that no one (except maybe the despair sisters) had access to the internet the whole time. So celeste, a relatively lonely girl in canon, might not have known or seen very many blonde men in normal life and might have latched onto byakuya for whatever reason. While i do admit that this is a pretty big stretch and i'm just kinda grasping at straws, there really isn't much of their canon relationship to go off of so i'm doing the best i can for my interpretation. I am well aware that the dude looking like byakuya is most likely just a coincidence (hell, that haircut is actually very similar to the one commonly worn by host club workers in japan so that could just be the artists trying to convey the fact that the men around her in that image are meant to be handsome)
That said, i'm surprised that this ship is as unpopular as it is; i feel as though if the danganronpa fandom had a fankid community as big as the my little pony fandom, celesgami would probably be the danganronpa equivalent of raripants (AKA rarity x fancy pants). Sure, this isn't a FLAWLESS comparison; as there's a LOT of popular danganronpa ships that people like and any potential next gen aus would have a lot of variety with ships (ex: one person makes an AU with saiouma, another one makes an AU with saimatsu) meanwhile in the MLP fandom there's only really 2 ships per mane 6 member that people stick with for their next gens and the only real variety is when they mix and match them (this was ESPECIALLY apparent during the early seasons up to season 4). In my defense though, i've been in the MLP fandom longer than i have danganronpa and i've seen some people get PRETTY creative with their next gens.
for more information, i recommend celesgami's article on the shipping wiki
so how did i, the grand priestess of the church of celesgami, get into the ship?
I first started shipping celesgami around january of 2023. I was in the car listening to music, specifically the song "gold digger" by kanye west (via an unofficial lyric video btw, i don't support kanye as he's an antisemetic piece of shit) and like lots of people, i was imagining an AMV in my head while i listened. The AMV was specifically about danganronpa and the power couple you all know (and hopefully love) at this point, as a joke: i thought "lol what if celeste and byakuya were actually exes???" And the more i thought about it, the more the ship made sense to me and now i'm the deranged lunatic you all know today (^w^)
When i first started shipping this, i was surprised that i liked it so much because originally, i thought that it wasn't really the dynamic i went for in ships since i was moreso into "girlboss x malewife" type pairings though i gave it some thought and realized i've been into "mildly toxic boy x girl rarepair" ships since i was 10 years old and shipped flowey and temmie from undertale so it isn't really THAT surprising i guess.....and yes, i said "mildly toxic."
their dynamic
As much as i love this ship, i am fully aware that realistically: they would not get along if they really got to know each other. Byakuya has a strong sense of self-superiority and doesn't listen to people he deems as lesser so i feel like he'd hate celeste and celeste would hate him for disrespecting her because of that....it's very messy and i understand that. If we're to force the ship in there anyway, i feel like it works more if they were dating before the events of the game and they just forgot about their relationship because y'know....junko wiped everyone's memories; either that or maybe they got together AFTER the events of the game, when they've both gone through character arcs and have grown as people. That said: while i'm not really one for angst (i like writing it but not so much reading it) this is probably the only ship i don't really mind there being angst for...i mean, celeste literally fucking DIED, so it's really par for the course of what's in canon.
That said though, it's been established in canon that celeste sees byakuya as an equal so i feel like she'd be the one to fall first. I like to imagine that celeste would playfully tease and flirt with byakuya and just watch him get flustered lol; if the ship wasn't FULLY unrequited, i feel like byakuya would be a tsundere regarding his feelings towards celeste. To be honest, this one tumblr post really captures how i feel their dynamic would be lol:
these two are great thematically as well, their designs look really good together; celeste's mostly black color palette with red accents contrast against byakuya's dark greenish-grey really well (albeit spike chunsoft does kinda try to gaslight us into thinking his palette is blue)
In my mind: they're just two cold-hearted bastards who hate the world but have found solace in each other; if they really gave it a chance, they'd come to find that they understand each other in ways no one else can; celeste would often "break character" whenever they were alone, just giggling like a schoolgirl because of how much she loves byakuya. they'd keep their relationship a secret because they don't want to give the others the idea that they're soft or whatever; i imagine they'd often hold hands behind their podiums during class trials. Just....the thought of them sharing one final kiss before celeste's execution and byakuya yearning for her after that fact....makes me feel like this if i'm being honest:
resources
here's where i will be providing some links to things regarding the ship, such as (my own) fanart, fanfiction (that hopefully isn't my own), edits, all that fun stuff.
let's say....hypothetically - a danganronpa among us AU fanfiction i wrote featuring the ship. while the story WAS made as a joke and byakuya is primarily shipped with ben shapiro the whole time, it's admittedly just thinly veiled celesgami angst.