why do you ship seiyasu

the main reason i came up with and enjoy ieyasu/seimei is because they seem to be opposites in terms of ideology and personality but at the same time they also have some similar themes and i thought it was interesting! i like thinking about their interactions even in a non-romantic context (that being said when i mention them just assume it's romantic) 

 

• idealistic vs realistic
  • ieyasu has very lofty goals and dreams, which he simply describes as wanting a world of peace (specifically, for "that peace to continue into eternity" which is a lot considering his... short lifespan). even the most immediate, practical goal of becoming shogun doesn't appeal to him, since the method doesn't matter to him as much as the end goal.
  • in contrast, seimei has much more realistic and immediate goals: he researched kodoku with doman to further his onmyodo, then sought to end his life alongside doman's to ensure that the curse doesn't become complete. and it seems like his new goal is to try and bring rikugo back... they're all very specific goals that he more or less knows how to fulfill.
• teamwork vs working alone
  • ieyasu values teamwork and harmony, and it can be seen by the way he welcomes euden's help as well as how he tells sazanka to treat him more as a friend than a master. seimei is one of the few event characters who refused to work with euden at first, shutting him out and even keeping his plan a secret from kuzunoha.
• duty vs individuality
  • ieyasu seems to value his sense of duty as a wyrmclan leader a lot, arguably the most out of the ones introduced. his main event and summer event are mainly about how he learns to wind down and enjoy other things rather than just prioritizing his duty. he actually thought it was necessary to cast aside his friendship with botan to do this, and he also didn't confide in anyone even though the decision hurt him. 
  • seimei couldn't be less interested in the wyrmclan leader position, and even from a young age, he knew taking up the mantle would mean that his grandfather was no longer around. by the time he does become leader, he's already planning to die alongside doman and at that point definitely doesn't care much about his duties at all... he's also shown to be dismissive of the wyrmclan leaders' duty to spread fortune in alberia. i think his actions and thoughts show that he values himself as a member of the bureau of onmyodo and his grandfather's grandson more than his position as a wyrmclan leader.
  • interestingly enough, ieyasu's character development is about him stepping away from his duties and learning to enjoy life for himself, while seimei's is about learning to value his duty and the responsibility that comes alongside it, which in turn makes him appreciate life more... it's nice! 
  • you can also see their attitudes towards their duties show in how they react to their shortened lifespans... ieyasu is shown to be quite conscious of it (mentions it a lot) and he was worried about it to the point of throwing aside botan's friendship so as to not hurt her because of it. in shingen's story, it's shown that he may have actually deluded himself into thinking he can escape this fate, being the first wyrmclan leader to express that they wanted to live longer despite the soulpact's effects being irreversible. 
  • on the other hand, seimei was ready to throw his life away even earlier than the soulpact ensured it to be, and his decision to live actually took more of a toll on him because of kodoku. i think for him, dying would have been the easier way out and the way he wanted it to be but in the end he chooses to live... 
  • in short, ieyasu -> desire to live and learns to accept death / seimei -> desire to die and learns to accept life

but they're also shown to have some similarities, namely the feelings of regret they have over losing a family member. even if neither of their family members' deaths were directly caused by them, they still have lingering feelings of responsibility over it and it manifests in the way they interact with others. in seimei's case his guilt and responsibility are more understandable since he helped in reviving kodoku, and this obviously results in him trying to atone for it by dying alongside the curse but also this specific line below:

 

even though his ultimate goal was to stop doman and get rid of the kodoku curse, which he could have fulfilled by ignoring this old man in need, he still couldn't turn away from the immediate crisis in front of him because he reminded him of his grandfather...

 

ieyasu seems to feel a kind of regret for not being able to return the love he received from his father, so he takes these feelings and gives it forward instead. he even goes as far as to call himself selfish for this, since he only did it to settle the feelings of regret for not being able to do the same for his father. 

they also both have trouble with being honest about... a lot of things, even to the people who are closest to them. seimei (at least in the way others see him) seems to put others down and call them incompetent if only to get them out of the way so they don't get hurt. even the fact that he kept his plan to die a secret from kuzunoha could be interpreted as such, as well as the reason he blocked off euden and the rest from entering the halidom while he took care of doman. even after the fight with doman, he seems to have hidden the aftereffects of kodoku from kuzunoha, who was surprised when his spasms acted up in quinbell. despite this, he does open up to shingen about it... and whether that's because the situation meant he couldn't really hide it, or because it was shingen, i like to think that there are some things he feels like he can share with other wyrmclan leaders more...

ieyasu's entire event also stems from the fact that he hid the truth of the wyrmclan leaders' shortened lifespans from botan, and he also continued to bottle up his feelings from sazanka, his closest retainer, despite telling sazanka himself that she should treat him as a friend. he would literally rather cut off his best friend than tell her the truth... and as shown in shingen's story, he still struggles with being honest to botan because of his own conflicting feelings. and again, he confides in shingen right after this happens and especially given shingen's (excessive) response to it, i think his struggles to explain his feelings come from the fact that he doesn't think someone who isn't in the same position (short lifespan) would understand...

i think because of ieyasu's fixation on his role as a wyrmclan leader i enjoy seeing him paired with characters who disregard it, since it forces him to break out of his "model leader" persona. the way seimei speaks (moreso in japanese, where he uses impolite speech even to yoshitsune and izumo) and his attitude about wyrmclan duties in general makes it feel like he really doesn't care about formalities like that and i think it throws off ieyasu a bit? but that being said i think seimei is similarly disrupted by people who have the strength/reasoning to clash against him such as yoshitsune in cursed connections or luca in fortune's fray. i think this makes their interactions interesting because they're both.. pushing each other to be more honest with themselves and i think it makes more of the hidden side of their personalities show up (ieyasu's "selfishness" and seimei's honesty). 

 

anyway thats...! what i've concluded from mulling over canon for a very long time but i just think their conflicting/similar themes are nice and cytendo not giving me any canon basis means i can do whatever i want with it. thank you for reading if you got this far lol