Keico

Keico is the slash ship between Boyfriend and Pico from the Friday Night Funkin' and Pico's School fandoms.

Friday Night Funkin'
Pico and Boyfriend are ex-boyfriends. It is currently unknown as to why they broke up, but they presumably went their separate ways before the events of Friday Night Funkin'.

After Boyfriend humiliated his girlfriend's disapproving father, Daddy Dearest, by beating him in a rap battle in Week 1, Daddy Dearest hires Pico to kill Boyfriend. Pico doesn't know who he is being sent to kill until he encounters Boyfriend in Week 3. Unable to bring himself to kill his ex-boyfriend, Pico spares Boyfriend's life and challenges him to a rap battle instead.

In Week 5, Pico can be seen in the background spectating during Boyfriend's rap battles with Daddy Dearest and Mommy Mearest.

In Week 7, Daddy Dearest sends Boyfriend and Girlfriend to a desert military base run by the Tankmen while Pico is also sent there to confirm Boyfriend's death. Pico doesn't follow these orders, however; in the cutscene before Stress, while Girlfriend is almost shot by two Tankmen, Pico appears and knocks her off the speaker. Pico then starts enthusiastically shooting the Tankmen in order to protect Boyfriend and Girlfriend.

Pico's School: Love Conquers All
In the April Fools' version of Pico's original Flash game, Pico's enemy-turned-friend Cassandra reveals that on her planet, everyone is gay, and claims that people on earth are homophobic. Pico responds to her by saying that not everyone is homophobic; he proves his point by showing her his boyfriend, Boyfriend, and claiming that everyone in his school accepts them. Thus, it is proven that Pico and Boyfriend dated in high school.

Fanon
Keico is one of the most popular ships in the Friday Night Funkin' fandom, only topped by its main rival ship BoyGirl, and is the most popular slash ship in the fandom. It originated as a fanon ship before becoming canon.

The ship started off with fan theories regarding Pico and Boyfriend's relationship. Many people guessed that they had previously dated, and some even believed that they were currently dating. Once these theories became increasingly popular, Tom Fulp and Ninjamuffin99 began to make joke Tweets claiming Keico was canon. However, Ninjamuffin99 later changed his mind and decided that it was no longer a joke.

Keico is generally portrayed with Pico as the more aggressive, aloof, or dominant one in the relationship, while Boyfriend is more light-hearted, playful, and passive. Sometimes fanart of the ship leans into archetypical yaoi tropes, and these tropes make up some of the ship's appeal to fans.

Girlfriend's role in relationship to Keico varies among fan interpretations: she may be a point of conflict in the relationship, with her and Pico competing for Boyfriend's love, or all three characters may be shipped in the form of a polyamorous ship.

The ship's immense popularity in the fandom resulted in fan-made mods that feature Keico as a prominent story element: the most popular mod with Keico content being "Friday Night Funkin' Soft". Aside from mods, the ship also caused a resurgence in Pico's School content, causing Keico fanfiction to overshadow ships between characters who actually originated in Pico's games.

Despite its popularity, Keico has several rival ships that its opposers prefer: besides the most obvious BoyGirl, PicNene and Picandra are common rival ships, with less common ones being Boyfriend x Sky, Picnell, and Pico x Lila.

Fandom

 * FAN FICTION


 * TUMBLR


 * NEWGROUNDS
 * Keico tag on Newgrounds
 * Pico x BF tag on Newgrounds
 * Pico-x-BF tag on Newgrounds
 * Pico x Boyfriend tag on Newgrounds

Trivia

 * Boyfriend is canonically bisexual, while Pico's sexuality is unlabeled.
 * The ship's name derives from "Keith", which was a popular fanon name for Boyfriend in the earlier days of the fandom. Even though the developers have claimed that this is not Boyfriend's name, people continue to refer to the ship as such, for the lack of a better name.
 * According to PhantomArcade, one of the developers of Friday Night Funkin', the game's upcoming update will have a cutscene revealing what Boyfriend and Pico's first date was like.