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waterscroll...after rewatching a bunch of my favorite scenes. This is definitely my favorite route, btw, although Chitose and Kazuya are a close tie for second. And really none of the routes work that well in isolation, it's the differences between them that make the game.
"Do you know how many times I've betrayed you?"
"I've forgotten."
And ok, I am In Ship. ::flails:: And to be fair, Senkimaru really did betray Yukina a lot of times. *I* might have forgotten how many just because it's too many to keep count. But in the end she's able to trust him anyway because she knows who he is and what his particular kind of integrity looks like.
I keep being struck by how intense this route is while not being romantic at all. In the very last scene of the sweet ending he's still not sure if she likes him romantically, and the flashback ending seemed to drop the possibility that she could stay friends with Senkimaru but date Chitose. (And the short post-canon routes in the sequel, in which she's Princess Yase and gets to choose any of them, seem to build off the Senkimaru flashback route.) The deep connection that Yukina and Senkimaru build is powerful and world-changing but it is fundamentally about hard-earned trust, and romance or attraction are nearly irrelevant.
This route reminded me of a few reasons that I love enemyships. And yes, they are unrealistic, in the real world it is probably not a good idea to date someone who tried to kill you and your friends. But, they have some advantages. A female character is often at her strongest when fighting her worst enemy, and in a lot of good het enemyships she becomes incredibly strong. Yukina is at her strongest here, and her strength comes from knowing herself and her powers. It's the only route in which she doesn't need to absorb the strength of any of the elders, because in the end, once she fully knows herself, her own strength is enough.
And, most basically: my love for enemyships is fundamentally a love for good stories about peacemaking. Which doesn't get that many good stories, and can be hard to tell stories about. There's a kind of peace that happens at the end of all the routes, but it's achieved through one side winning. In the Senkimaru route, peace is built through honesty, painfully slow trust-building, acceptance of responsibility for wrongdoing and eventually some forgiveness. When a story can make that sexy I'm going to be pretty happy. It's a much harder-won kind of love than Yukina finds in some other routes, but it goes deep, and in the end no one dies.
So I think I am In Ship enough that I might have to commit fic. Which is laughable, since the Demon's Bond fandom tag on AO3 has 3 fics in it, all crossovers, and this might be the least-read fic I'd ever write. But it might be worth it.
"Do you know how many times I've betrayed you?"
"I've forgotten."
And ok, I am In Ship. ::flails:: And to be fair, Senkimaru really did betray Yukina a lot of times. *I* might have forgotten how many just because it's too many to keep count. But in the end she's able to trust him anyway because she knows who he is and what his particular kind of integrity looks like.
I keep being struck by how intense this route is while not being romantic at all. In the very last scene of the sweet ending he's still not sure if she likes him romantically, and the flashback ending seemed to drop the possibility that she could stay friends with Senkimaru but date Chitose. (And the short post-canon routes in the sequel, in which she's Princess Yase and gets to choose any of them, seem to build off the Senkimaru flashback route.) The deep connection that Yukina and Senkimaru build is powerful and world-changing but it is fundamentally about hard-earned trust, and romance or attraction are nearly irrelevant.
This route reminded me of a few reasons that I love enemyships. And yes, they are unrealistic, in the real world it is probably not a good idea to date someone who tried to kill you and your friends. But, they have some advantages. A female character is often at her strongest when fighting her worst enemy, and in a lot of good het enemyships she becomes incredibly strong. Yukina is at her strongest here, and her strength comes from knowing herself and her powers. It's the only route in which she doesn't need to absorb the strength of any of the elders, because in the end, once she fully knows herself, her own strength is enough.
And, most basically: my love for enemyships is fundamentally a love for good stories about peacemaking. Which doesn't get that many good stories, and can be hard to tell stories about. There's a kind of peace that happens at the end of all the routes, but it's achieved through one side winning. In the Senkimaru route, peace is built through honesty, painfully slow trust-building, acceptance of responsibility for wrongdoing and eventually some forgiveness. When a story can make that sexy I'm going to be pretty happy. It's a much harder-won kind of love than Yukina finds in some other routes, but it goes deep, and in the end no one dies.
So I think I am In Ship enough that I might have to commit fic. Which is laughable, since the Demon's Bond fandom tag on AO3 has 3 fics in it, all crossovers, and this might be the least-read fic I'd ever write. But it might be worth it.
