Natsuri

Natsuri is the femslash ship between Natsuki and Yuri from the Doki Doki Literature Club! fandom.

Doki Doki Literature Club
In Act 1, Natsuki and Yuri are introduced as "rivals," in a way, as they bicker quite a lot about menial things, probably due to the large gap in their personalities, although they are friends beneath it all. A main source of their fights is that Yuri never knows what to say to Natsuki, especially about her poetry, which, more often than not, leads to Natsuki taking it the worst way possible and causing a fight to boil over.

Later on, it’s revealed that Yuri had always liked Natsuki's poetry but due to her social awkwardness, she could never find the right words to compliment it - leading Natsuki to assume it was an insult. They also seem to argue often, eventually prompting Natsuki to write a poem about her friendship with Yuri called "Amy Likes Spiders", in which a girl is ridiculed for her harmless hobby, a clear analogy to Natsuki's love of mangas and comics it’s told from what can be assumed to be Yuri’s PoV (Point of View).

In Act 2, it's revealed that despite all the arguments and gaps in interests, Natsuki wants to befriend Yuri and get closer to her when she writes a letter to the protagonist - explaining she's worried about Yuri's recent, worrying behavior. This shows that Natsuki does indeed care about Yuri.

During Act 4, after Monika resets everything, Natsuki and Yuri seem to be closer than ever - Yuri talks about reading a manga and Natsuki wanting to read a horror novel, so they can both understand the type of literature the other enjoys. They plan to go to the bookstore together after school.

Game artist Satchely's Valentine's Day artwork (2019) featured Natsuki and Yuri together, while Monika and Sayori were separated. Additionally, the valentine Yuri holds is short, with a small pink cat in one corner, while Natsuki's valentine is multiple pages, all with a considerable amount of writing. Knowing the characters, these details can be read that the girls traded valentines with one another.

Doki Doki Literature Club Plus
In DDLC+, their relationship got explored further in the side stories. It is revealed that at first, Yuri and Natsuki didn't get along very well and mostly ignored each other. When Natsuki first joined the Literature Club, Yuri sided with Monika on the idea that Natsuki is the problem, not her. Then when Sayori tried spending time with Natsuki, oblivious to Natsuki's discomfort with all the smothering, after waving at Natsuki who was hanging out with her friends and running away, Yuri tries to explain to Sayori that Natsuki may just have a life outside of the club different to theirs'.

Eventually, Yuri and Natsuki began to talk to each other more, but it would very easily turn into an argument. Like Yuri getting offended by Natsuki calling Yuri's books 'boring' and Yuri calling Natsuki's manga, as well as indirectly Natsuki herself, 'immature'. Monika tries to fix the situation but only makes things worse.

Natsuki and Yuri then speak with Sayori and Monika respectively and separately that they hate how they treat the other and feel bad about it, even if the other makes them mad. Yuri decides to swallow her anxiety and write a letter to Natsuki explaining her feelings with the help of Monika, to which Natsuki would read the next day.

In their main side story, Natsuki catches Yuri at a construction stairway which is empty and quiet and begins to come there more often. The two begin to work their problems out. Natsuki bakes a lot of Green Tea cupcakes for Yuri. At first, Yuri is fine with one but after learning that Natsuki's friends are not real friends, she accepts all the cupcakes. Yuri even points out that if anyone tried to hurt Natsuki, she would unleash hell upon them, showing just how much Yuri cares about Natsuki.

Natsuki returns having dumped her friends, who always teased her and mocked her about her love for manga, and has a panic attack. Yuri helps Natsuki calm down through slow breathing and the two become relaxed.

In the end, Yuri and Natsuki agree to have a little teasing amongst each other and plan to go out together on weekends if possible.

Quotes
"Natsuki...about yesterday...I just wanted to apologize! I promise i didn't mean any of the things i said. And I'll do my best to stay under control from now on..."

- Yuri apologizing for the "fight" in act 2

"Natsuki... If anyone even thinks to cause you harm... I will unleash hell upon them."

- Yuri showing support for Natsuki in Self-Love

Fanon
Natsuri is arguably the most popular ship in the fandom. Similarly to Sayonika, the ship gained traction due to the major roles Natsuki and Yuri played in part to each other's character/character depth, as well as its appeal to the "" trope, given the contrast between Yuri's gentle timidity and Natsuki's assertiveness, traits which are repeatedly pointed at throughout the game itself. The visual appeal of the ship is also one to have played a major role in the ship's popularity, thanks to the candy-colored palettes of either girl's hair and eyes, not to mention the (6 in./16 cm.) height difference present between the two.

The final interaction between Natsuki and Yuri, where they made plans to go out to a bookstore together, played perhaps the largest role in this ship's popularity, as the combination of both girl's flustered faces, Sayori's comment that they were "cute" blushing upon themselves, as well as the opportunities to read their time out as that of a typical date, made for a suspicious enough mess of possibilities for endless fanworks to spread off of.

Natsuki's poem, Amy Likes Spiders is the most heavily debated upon within the game. At surface level, the poem appears to be about Natsuki, and the flack she receives for her otaku habits, but the possibility of a deeper meaning of the poem is one that is often played around with fans of the game. The most popular theory sees the poem from the perspective of Natsuki, and portrays Yuri as "Amy", and her habits of self-mutilation as the "spiders". This poem was written in juxtaposition to Yuri’s poem The Raccoon, which serves as a fairly obvious metaphor to her self-mutilation. As shown by select lines within the game, as well as her letter to the protagonist, Natsuki is well-aware of Yuri's "habits", and appears to be the only one who is. She recognizes how Yuri draws praise from her dark poems, all about these "guilty pleasures" of hers, and this worries her, as Yuri is inadvertently being encouraged to hurt herself.

As per evident, Natsuki longs to become closer to Yuri, but is afraid to because that would mean that she would have to accept Yuri’s "habits". The last line of the poem, if truly about Yuri, indicates that Natsuki is ready to talk about Yuri’s problem and confront it head on.

Natsuki's next poem (I'll Be Your Beach), is speculated to be about Yuri as well, although this time about comforting her, and that she (Natsuki) is willing to carry Yuri's burdens to help her love herself again. This is supported by the fact that Natsuki personally asked Yuri to write the same topic as her, this topic being the 'beach'. Yuri's poem (Beach), notably, is speculated to be about how she (Yuri) sees love.

Fanwork-wise, Natsuri has arguably the most out of any ship. This is especially noticable in terms of fanfiction, being that the Natsuri tag has almost double that of the next largest pairing (Sayonika).

Fan Content Tropes
Time and time again, Natsuki has been named as a staple, even an archetype to the ‘tsundere’ trope often seen in anime. In turn, Yuri is compared to the ‘’ trope. This is due to the brash, sometimes mean front that Natsuki puts up to hide her ‘inner softy’, and Yuri’s progressive maddening (and later violence), that drew from her desire of love. In some fanfiction for the pairing, most often satirical works, authors take these tropes into account and exaggerate them however desired, which often leads to laughable situations given the considerable ridiculousness of said exaggerations.

Appearance-wise, Natsuki and Yuri have commonly been compared to Yuu and Touko (respectively) of Japanese yuri manga series ‘Bloom into You’, given shared features of short hair, as well as short stature (Natsuki/Yuu), and long hair and considerable height (Yuri/Touko). A small fanart trend rose upon the notice of this, which consisted of redrawing select covers of the ‘Bloom into You’ manga, with Natsuki and Yuri in the respective places/positions of Yuu and Touko.

Fandom

 * FAN FICTION
 * Natsuki/Yuri on FanFiction.Net


 * FAN ART


 * REDDIT
 * Natsuri subreddit on Reddit


 * TUMBLR


 * TWITTER

Trivia

 * Natsuki and Yuri's chibis are positioned next to one another's during the Poem Minigame.
 * Dan Salvato joked that in the epilogue, Natsuki and Yuri probably kissed in the corner of the library.

Variations

 * Doki Doki Squad refers to the ship between the two, Monika (DDLC) and Sayori
 * Literature Club refers to the ship between the two, Protagonist (DDLC), Monika and Sayori
 * NatsuYuriMC refers to the ship between the two and Protagonist
 * MoniSukiYuri refers to the ship between the two and Monika
 * SayoSukiYuri refers to the ship between the two and Sayori