>>35315171It's still a pretty damn good ship. I think a good ship has the will they or won't they dynamic and gurame has plenty of that. A good ship shows you flashes, but keeps you guessing. A good ship has real threats and obstacles to navigate and isn't just constant flirting and pandering that inexplicably continues to lead to no real payoff. In that way gurame is still the only real ship that EN has to offer. It's the only one that's analogous to a real relationship.
The love is there, but it's not always balanced and it's not always simple just like real romance. There's a bittersweet and ironic quality to it as well. I've always seen the biggest obstacle to be the success delta. Ame has said that she doesn't want to be overshadowed and become just "Gura's girlfriend" and the irony is that Gura also struggles with the burden of her own success. She doesn't always know how to deal with her meteoric rise, she arguably didn't even want for it to happen in the first place, and she likely also doesn't want to overshadow Ame. So they face the same obstacle, but it requires two opposite ways of dealing with it. Ame has to distance herself from Gura and downplay the ship to promote her independence despite her love for Gura. Gura meanwhile is forced to accept her arguably unwanted role at the top of vtubing and keep her distance in order to respect Ame's wishes despite her love for Ame. They are starcrossed lovers in a way. Both are forced to mostly admire each other from afar. It's nobody's fault, but that's the reality of the situation they find themselves in and love is complicated like that sometimes.
