#I'VE NEVER BEEN IN A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP ... EVER ... MUCH LESS FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR

[freckliedan]

in your opinion do you think that now they’re not in the closet publicly anymore, it’s not that they necessarily care that people think/know they’re together, it’s just more that they want to keep their actual relationship private?

ooh this is a good question honestly! i mean, they've said it themselves that they're private, and their actions back that up too. i think a huge part of the way they've navigated the privacy for their relationship while & since coming out has been about setting a clear boundary, considering the past violations of their privacy?

but honestly i think there's another huge piece of why they've been so private over the last five years and why that's changing now! i think the gaming channel hiatus era has been their individualization era, which was important for dan especially. like, phil had some time as an adult to learn who he was before he met dan; all of dan's identity formation as an adult happened in the context of his relationship with phil.

spending your entire adult life in a relationship with someone, AND living with them AND working together AND having shared friends for the vast majority of those years? speaking from experience: you can reach a point where you're less able to identify your own individual wants and needs and strengths and dreams, even if it's a healthy and beautiful relationship.

especially if there was any level of tumultuousness in your home life lol

with the added pressure of being a public figure it makes a lot of sense to me that a hard reset had to happen for dan's exploration of who he is and wants to be and enjoys doing with his career to succeed! dan is not okay being fucked over is such a heartbreaking thing, but the time dan spent almost completely out of the public eye followed by a fully solo tour & span of his career shere he was regularly posting is like—it makes sense!

it makes sense that the last 5 years were focused on everything but their relationship! but it also makes like equal sense to me that they're returning to the gaming channel and joint content and a higher level of being open with us, too.

they tried fully solo careers. and i'm sure they both know now, what they like doing independently of one another. but it's so clear to me that they've returned to the gaming channel because they genuinely love to make videos together, and it's a part of them making a fully informed choice about their future careers.

like. it actually really grinds my gears when people say that dan and phil only came back to the gaming channel for the money, tbh! because yeah, i'm sure it's one of their best options for bringing in money. but like... yall they are rich people. they absolutely have money invested. they absolutely are having their money managed. they almost certainly could pull off never working again if they wanted to.

they wouldn't phone it in just for money, not with the standards they've consistantly shown themselves to have for the work they do. like, yes, they're doing their job and making money for it. but i just don't understand seeing this as anything but a choice they made because they love working together—and because they're sure of that, having spent half a decade on solo projects.

the individuation era ending also makes the higher level of being open about their lives make sense. i've always thought we were due for a being loud about how happy they are in their relationship era post coming out and. well. this is definitely that. i can't say i ever wanted to hear this much about their sex lives but i also can't truly say i'm surprised!

i think this is an era of shifting boundaries to be at least a little more open regarding their relationship and life together and i think that's what they're boiling us about this gamingmas! ultimately they're always going to keep more to themselves than they ever share with us but like. things are changing!

[irregularsleepingfish]

I think it's really fucking funny that of all the songs on Will Wood's In Case I Make It (yeah I know. 20-something trans man that listens to will wood. how typical) - an album that has a song about euthanizing a pet, and another one from the perspective of a truly innocent (in action and in mindset) doormouse that gets poisoned by the humans that own the house it lives in, the one that makes me actually cry somewhat consistently is the one about getting married.

breaking this because it's gonna be long as fuck. content warning for trauma dump I fucking guess. I'm not offended if you skip this one trust <3

the reason why is so simple. I've spent my entire life not understanding why those around me think I'm such a freak and why I can't keep up with what the hell my parents want from me. turns out I'm neurodivergent (possibly and/or probably autistic, definitely adhd. maybe some other cocktail that I'm not even aware of) and when you grow up with conservative parents and a neurodivergent brother who was given attention and care and assistance that he needs, and your neurodivergence is "less obvious" than his, sorry kid you have to be the perfect child. I couldn't possibly have adhd or whatever. I was just lazy, you see - I was a spoiled, entitled brat and not doing my homework and failing my classes wasn't indicative of any real struggle. it was indicative of the fact that I hadn't been punished or disciplined enough, don't you see? my father once called me a bitch during a period where my friends at that time (hs girls so what can you do) abandoned me and I was having doors slammed in my face and being harassed at every opportunity. and whenever I'd bring this up as reasons that just MAYBE I'm a bit traumatized I'm told "man you still haven't gotten over that?"

i was never given the graces of the people who were supposed to take care of me and that led me into a relationship that I clung to for dear life as a fucked up teenager because it was all I knew and I felt like I needed that to survive. then as years went on that relationship turned sour for me and it took me far too long to escape it because I once again felt trapped in an obligation to someone who, from my perspective, wanted me to be someone I am not - much like my parents. they wanted me to do things I did not want and made me viscerally uncomfortable, putting more trauma on me to where after I finally broke it off (messy and unfun btw) I felt like I could never find love. like there was too much wrong with me. the way I think is very pragmatic and I don't feel empathy the way other people do. I had to learn that myself.

it took me so long to finally become someone worth being. a HUGE part of that came with transitioning (shocker!)

so anyways the song. about finding someone to be happily married to. constantly echoing "just like my parents" and because MY parents are egregious and annoying and my father is a piece of shit and my mom both tries and doesn't care enough somehow, it stings like a poisonous irony.

then at the end he goes "Just like my parents... yeah right." and it's like a knife to the gut type of reminder that I'll never be just like them. but I also don't fucking want to be. I mean ok mainly because I'm never having kids fuck that, but in terms of a healthy marriage - IF I ever even got there. which, when I first heard that song, I fully believed I never would.

why would I be able to love anyone, anyhow. who would ever be ok with someone as traumatized as I am. navigating an awful relationship with my parents. an ex that made me think I hated physical touch. so on and so forth.

every crush I confess to will turn me down. so let's get this over with so this one can turn me down as well, we can go back to being friends, and the status quo doesn't have to change.

and then he said yes.

"ive made more mistakes than simple empty moments. each one as out of character as you know I tend to be."

and with every out of character thing I do I realize they all come together to create this character I've made that is myself. every mistake I've made is why I'm me. stored within the chemicals of my brain.

this is not a mistake. this might just be the most important thing I've ever done. even if this doesn't last long the past month or whatever has shown me, concretely, that I am capable of loving and being loved in a way that I just didn't think I was able to do anymore. even if this doesn't last - which, you know, I hope it does, who in my position wouldn't? - the experience I've had here has changed me for the better. I don't feel trapped. I don't feel tethered, or obligated, or anything. I just feel happy. I just feel loved. it's possible to be in a relationship that's so untethered and free and genuine and I had no idea. maybe there is a future in which I can grow old with someone.

but of course it's all an if and a maybe and a who knows because you know it's been four weeks. roughly. still there's a lot you can learn from having deep conversations with someone for those weeks.

"Close enough to forever, I guess, to prove what I hope. I mean, otherwise, how am I to believe?"

I love you.

[karinamay]

Writing interview tag game

Thank you @cinnamontails-ff for the taaaag now I get to ramble about writing hell yes

When did you start writing?

I've been writing stories basically as long as I can remember, and I was a very avid journal keeper between ages like 7 and 21. First time I decided I was going to "write a book" I was 10, and me and my best friend at the time got permission to spend 2 hours or so every week at school to work on it because it was a "good creative persuit", whic was pretty cool. I have been writing fiction ever since, and I think I started writing fanfic around when I was 16 or so, so about 14 yearsish ago.

Are there different themes or genres you enjoy reading than what you write?

I write (urban) fantasy/romance pretty much exclusively, but I read all sorts. I do enjoy me some good dystopian, and some scifi here and there, and from time to time I 180 into reading less fantastical literary fiction that borders on nihilistic-satire-black comedy ish (I've read Bret Easton Ellis' entire bibliography, to give an idea). In the end most of what I read is in the fantasy with either romance or found family (or, ideally, both) realm though, I love escaping to magical worlds.

Is there a writer you want to emulate or get compared to often?

I try not to compare my work actively to other writers'. Of course there are writers I admire and look up to, but there isn't a writer that I want to "write like" really. I write very much like me. And with that, I don't think I've ever specifically been compared to another author? Not that I can remember anyway.

Can you tell me a bit about your writing space?

My current writing setup is in my living room, which is not ideal, it's just because my wifi doesn't reach into my office well enough. I am in the process of moving my shit over there though, so I'm excited to turn that into a bit more of an inspiring space. The only nice thing that I currently have in my writing space is my recently spruced up "bookcase" (I'll put a picture under the cut.)

What's your most effective way to muster up a muse?

Work for it. Nine out of ten times when I sit down to write I don't already have the spark or whatever that I need. (The tenth time is a great day, but it just doesn't happen very often, and it also doesn't actually necessarily mean your writing will be better that day.) When I have sat down on the days when it's not immediately there, and I start writing, it will usually come. It's kind of a stupid writing will come from writing loop that feeds itself, if that makes sense.

Are there any recurring themes in your writing? Do they surprise you?

Healthy communication is a big one, whether that's between romantic partners or any other kind of relationships. I write a lot about power and corruption and I'm big on found family. None of this is surprising at all. What is surprising to me is that I've started leaning more into creepy/eerie/horrory realms over the past year or so, which isn't really a theme, but definitely a genre I never thought I would enjoy so much.

What is your reason for writing?

Because it's the closest we can get to magic in this world. I get to dream up worlds and people and watch them try and fail and succeed and evolve, give them life, give them reason, fear, doubt, love, everything. It's fucking brilliant, and even though I get stuck and it's frustrating, I will never be able to not do it, because I don't know how not to.

Is there any specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating?

"I felt like I was there" is something that will always get me, that motivates me to no end. And I love when people start theorising, trying to figure out what's going to happen next. I weirdly get drawn into the theories, even though I know what happens next. I love it.

How do you want to be thought about by your readers?

Huh, I don't know. As someone who really cares deeply about the story I'm writing, I think. And hopefully as someone who captures the voices of the characters they love and who does them justice.

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

Dialogue. My stories are very dialogue driven, and I take a lot of pride in how the dialogue runs. And hand in hand with that dialogue, knowing when to throw in a bit of humour, especially in a dark story, without it feeling cheap.

How do you feel about your own writing?

Depends on the day, although I'm starting to get to a place where I'm generally pretty happy with it. There are many things I know I can improve on a lot still, but in the end, I do like what I'm writing, and I do think other people do/would like to read it.

It's a work in progress but the vibes are vibing imo.

[dontpetmeibite]

Have you ever felt disgusted with Megatron? Or any of your partners. Bad things happened in the War.

I think that in most relationships, even where people haven't committed any war crimes, there might be moments of disgust. (Also, war--any war--involves bad things.)

I was absolutely disgusted with Megatron when the Lost Light and its alternate counterpart came into the same space and the ship started disappearing around us, and he allowed us to be locked in a storeroom together, and we had the first real talk that we'd had since the end of the war.

I actually attacked him, you know, and he let me. I drew blood when I slapped his face, and all he did was take my wrist in his hand and hold it until I calmed down.

I've never felt more like a fraud in my entire life. See, Megatron and I used to argue a lot about things, but he was almost always able to convince me to go along with things that I wasn't really comfortable with, because the mech has charisma, and a way with words, and because we have known one another almost all of our lives. I used the arguments on him that he had always used on me--and also on Deadlock, except Deadlock snapped and I didn't. "Everyone wobbles." "This is just part of being a Decepticon." "You'll see what I meant on the other side of this." And so on.

But none of them worked when I used them on him.

And for him to turn to the Autobots for decency, when Soundwave had been standing there right next to him for four million years, and we had made it clear so many times that we didn't like the new versions of the infiltration protocols, and that we'd rather have administered the populations of our client worlds than obliterated them, and I'd even asked him once why, if it didn't matter what shape or size or form people were, it should matter what kinds of chemicals we were made of. We were community organisers back in Rodion. We never used violence then except as a last resort. I was never a freaking pacifist because I knew we were going to have to kill off most of the Senate just to fucking survive, let alone do any good, but I didn't use violence against people who had less power than I did except as needed for self-defence.

And because Megatron loved us, he didn't have us taken out and shot. But he did remove us from any and all decision making and authority over subject worlds. Soundwave was particularly upset about all of the time he had spent setting up class warfare on worlds so that we could drive people like the Senate out of power and arrange for badly needed revolutions...only for Megatron to decide after a few million years that after that, he'd send in Phase Sixers instead of a planetary governor.

So yeah. I was furious. Angry. Disgusted.

I can't tell you why I didn't stop loving him then. Why I never have, even though we are not together like that anymore. I will say that I was very relieved when I found out exactly how much damage Trepan did to him before Rung stopped him, and why, and that Sunder had pulled out all the staples and stitches and threads without touching him on the Lost Light. I won't say that it excuses everything or even anything he did that was wrong. But it was very enlightening to discover that the original plan of the Senate had been to break his mind and turn him loose only to have him destroy his own revolution, and that it had actually worked, except it had taken four million years and they all died at our hands not knowing that it had succeeded.

Megatron and I have always had a very tangled, enmeshed relationship and I wouldn't say it was ever a 'healthy' one--whatever the fuck that actually means. I've come to feel, especially after meeting the jackrod, that Terminus to some degree groomed Megatron, and that he passed some of that on down to me. I used to laugh about the fact that people would misread some of his old poetry and come to the conclusion that he was Parvilla's parent/mentor rather than her lover. (Parvilla was my pseudonym as a poet and also the name that he gave me as one of his muses.) But it's actually a little creepy, and we've both acknowledged that in recent years.

That said, he was one of the first people I ever met who cared how much I was being hurt back then. We are still amicae, but we are no longer sexually involved.

The worst moment in my relationship life, though, was with Soundwave, who is also the person I love and have loved the most. After Megatron's public and embarrassing abdication and betrayal of the cause and of his people, Soundwave (after a lot of goading from Galvatron) ordered me to go after Megatron, and find out if he was serious about this Autobot business, and kill him if that was the case. I was furious with Soundwave and angry that he wouldn't step up to the leadership himself when he's a better person in every way than Galvatron, and I was also really angry that he thought it was acceptable to set me on my amica. I knew it was a sort of test and a cruel one--because I hadn't fully recovered from cassettification, and I couldn't really properly refuse the order.

But I also knew he was out of his mind with grief at the time, mourning the illusion he'd had of who Megatron was, and the damage that Megatron had done to us together and separately, and to our relationship, and the way in which he'd manipulated us both to get us to cooperate with him. I knew that Megatron had hurt him deeply, and more importantly, I knew that there had been times when Megatron and I (together) had caused him a lot of pain; and on the Lost Light, it became apparent that between him and Megatron, he was the one who actually loved me the most.

Riptide asked me once whether I'd choose Soundwave over Megatron and I told him to stop trying to commit suicide-by-cat in the heat of the moment but later I told him that the choice I had made was to choose myself. I let both of them know that they couldn't manipulate me anymore and that I wouldn't put up with it from either of them.

Megatron pulled one last stunt that cost him the benefica part of 'amica benefica' after that. But shortly before I left the Lost Light, Soundwave rescinded the order, and while I had had all the cassette protocols overwritten by Ratchet, I also forgave him for giving it, because I understood the stress that he had been undergoing at the time, and because I knew he knew why it was wrong and regretted it.

I love Soundwave more than anyone and Megatron more than most, but I've been disgusted with things that they did. What matters to me is that they, too, became disgusted with those things. You know, we were all horrifically mistreated in our early youth. We knew what we knew. We knew the way we were being treated was wrong, but we had to figure out how and why on our own. At the time, every moral authority we were aware of was telling us that we were in the wrong because we refused to submit to our superiors in caste and obey the orders we were given. And Cybertronians committed genocides before the Decepticons did, and if you don't think the Autobots committed atrocities, I will be happy to introduce you to my sister, who survived Garrus-9, or to point out to you that the MTO programme was nothing we would ever have come up with on our own if we hadn't had to fight an enemy who was already using it. We were enslaved by the Quintessons, and the Iaconian culture which led the rebellion overtook and attempted to eradicate most other Cybertronian cultures, and out from the centre it spread, like a plague.

I don't believe there's a single living Cybertronian over the age of one hundred (years, not vorns or millennia) who has managed to avoid becoming complicit in some atrocity or other. But I also don't believe that executions solve problems. All execution does is make a few people (not all of them) who got harmed feel a little better emotionally, at the expense of the mental health of the person who is ordered to kill a helpless prisoner, and at the expense of every possible act of atonement or expiation that person could ever commit in an attempt to repair the universe. Revenge shouldn't be outsourced.

I've had a lot of conversations about imperialism and colonialism and conquest with people in recent years, especially Marissa Faireborn, and Charlie Watson. And I'm sorry that the evolution of our culture came at the cost of so many other peoples and worlds, but at some point you just have to stop what you're doing and do better. Letting yourself be stuck in a singularity till the heat death of the universe, or letting yourself be murdered in public, doesn't fix anything.

And in the end, Optimus Prime's solution to the problem of Earth was to try to become a coloniser himself, and Soundwave and I are proud that we helped Earth's inhabitants stop and resist and apply to the Council of Worlds on their own, with Sanctuary providing encouragement and assistance but not attempting to trespass their sovereignty.

I've rambled a lot. Thanks for your patience. I do that.

[lifeoflustandwonder]

Just a vent - ignore me (or don't).

Ive got such heavy imposter syndrome right now.

I am so very in love with my boyfriend, I love him so much it actually hurts my soul. He knows this, I know this. I know this to the depths of my being that nothing has ever felt so right so fast and I just cant believe it.

But i've been alone for the last year and a half, I am so very sure of myself when im alone its ridiculous. I have anxiety, but when im alone or not in a relationship I still have the anxiety, but it isnt there as heavily as there isnt any pressure.

Right now? I feel rife with it. Not because there is a problem, but my god the pressure of being with someone again is unmatched.

There is nothing this man does wrong, he dotes on me, he cares for me, he thinks of me in everything he does and vice versa, and I him. Ive been in two long term relationships. The first was 4 years, I left that relationship to be with my ex of 6.5 years.

The last year and a half is the first time ive been truly single and I have THRIVED. And its wild because I was ready to pack it in with dating until I met this man. Like id been fucking around and having a lot of fun, but id always been searching for a spark. Like I know I am happy on my own, so finding someone wasnt the end goal. Sure its nice to be with someone, I am a lover relationship girlie after all. However I enjoy dating and chatting and meeting people, Im also a huge nympho. So the random sex was always fun too. But I guess in my head I was like yeah i'll click with someone, itll happen. It got to the point where the meaningless sex was actually getting kind of boring. I was sick of explaining to people where Im from 1-3 times a week (Im currently living across the continent from home). I understand it comes with the territory of dating, but I was getting bored regardless because no one ever stuck.

But This man was actually my last stab at it, my thought process was 'go on this date, if it doesnt work out you can just continue to be on your own and itll all work itself out, its no stress, you're 27'. Naturally and weirdly it worked itself out with him being what feels like the literal love of my life.

I was going to delete all the apps and call off anything else I had going on after this date if it absolutely bombed or just wasnt anything special. It was the opposite, it was the best date Ive ever been on.

I've never been happier. But what I've discovered comes with this after being on my own and really thriving in being alone is that I just dont feel like I deserve him. I dont understand how someone like me, managed to get someone like him.

I am very sure of myself, I have so much love for myself and I know my worth. But its almost overwhemling how well he treats me, and maybe its because I dont feel like i've been in a healthy relationship until now. My last relstionship was pretty toxic by the end. So having him treat me this way I feel like I dont do enough for him.

Its actually fucking wild because I really pride myself on being a 'strong independant woman' as it was. One of the first times we met was because he didnt want me to walk home from work at 11pm in the rain for 40 minutes. He told me to stop being a 'strong independant woman for 10 minutes and let me come and pick you up and drop you home'. So I did, I let my guard down, and im really glad I did.

It just means Im in this really fucking weird headspace of whether or not I actully deserve this man. Like I KNOW I do, I deserve this kind of treatment so much. Much I just worry I'm not good enough for him because he's that good.

How backwards is that? Imagine not feeling good enough for your man because he treats you so well that you know you deserve the treatment but also he's so fucking great you don't think you deserves someone like him? like wtf is that? The heaviest conflict in my brain ever.

I would give him the entire world on a platter if I could. He gets princess treatment too. And rightly so, he deserves nothing less.

But that still doesnt stop my brain from telling me I dont deserve someone like him, even when I know I do.

I just hope I can gain the confidence in this to recognise that I do deserve this.

This is just my anxiety making me doubt if im treating him well enough, if he feels loved enough. Im going to ask him later for sure because I need to hear it from his mouth myself.

Honestly I dont have any doubt in the relationship, like I know he wants to be with me and I him. But I just want to know Im doing enough for him.

Im afraid of him leaving me, maybe thats what it is.

Every other man in my life has left me, why not another you know?

[seeking-sanity]

Forgetting to remember is probably the most beautiful gift anyone has ever given me.

I used to dread Christmas in my marriage, because- well- it was a terrible marriage full of one-sided love and reciprocated with greed and resentment. I looked forward to spoiling the kids as much as I could, and over the decade learned how to pretty delicately dodge the arguments from their father that would inevitably result in a general impression that he would just prefer they were always lacking- as he was...

And then he really ruined Christmas- with his less than festive attempt to decorate his semi in the truck parking- with his lifeless body... and the subsequent 911 call, CPR, and CCU stay- followed by the psych stay, the non-compliance with ANYTHING that might make him "healthy" to be around his kids. His obsession with committing to making me miserable, and in fear the rest of my life-

and then the worry- after I finally was free- of whether he would just do it anyways- completely destroy the kids. They were the only thing worth having that relationship for... they deserved so much more... from both of us if i'm being honest....

But Christmas- it never felt safe, or the same since. Even in healing, in investing in myself and a new life- Christmas was always just malicious compliance and a little bit habit, the excitement in the moments was fleeting- and the feeling of family had long since been gone.

This year, I did a thing- ventured down the entire coast, to spend the holidays with not my family. I had anxiety, feelings of stress, discomfort in a super general way... this is the first year I've missed a holiday with my mom, my nephew.

So we get here, way later at night than planned- settle into meeting strangers at midnight- and sleeping in their home.

This week has been eye opening for me. To see how people can openly accept a stranger into their home- love them- simply for the smile they brought with them. And maybe it isn't loving ME, but extended their love to me. This week has been sneaking trips for Christmas presents- getting excited playing the mole for gift ideas and keeping everyone's secrets. Cooking and sharing stories, taking boat rides and laughing- feeling like its just a vacation- with people who have been expecting me the whole time.

Yes, we are strangers in understanding- but just outright open acceptance- and love.

I forgot to remember how much anxiety this week brings me. i forgot to relive the trauma, the phone call, the moments in still frame- crystal clear and unfolding as if it were right now.

maybe this is what healing looks like... its not forgetting- or feeling any different about the meories when i think about them... its jsut forgetting to give them space. its forgetting to allow what doesn't matter- to matter- despite your best efforts to hold the wall, and protect yourself.

sometimes healing- is simply risking being allowed to be okay...

[alextheavoidant]

Kinda forgot about this blog for a minute. I have a tendency to start things and then get distracted by something else and forget what I was doing before, lol. Sorry about that.

Anyway.... i have been hesitant to talk about this... Mainly because it's so painful. But I've been dealing with losing what I guess you would call my best friend. No, they didn't die or anything. But my idea of who I thought they were has. They're my cousin. Basically a sibling to me. And after knowing them since they were literally born, I have finally had to face the hard truth. That they themselves, even though I thought we were on the same wavelength, even though I thought we were the ones who saw the dysfunction in our family, the ones who fought against it, who were going against the grain in hopes of better, healthier lives... They, too, have been corrupted by the narcissistic family system. That their understanding of me, attempts to emulate me, mirror back my sentiments... we're all manipulative. Nothing about them was ever genuine. I went no contact about two months ago when they showed me who they really are. It was the third occurrence when they engaged in overt abuse and manipulation against me. And after two months of having them out of my life, of speaking with my therapist and members of support groups extensively, and reflecting on our entire relationship... I can only come to one conclusion.

Obviously, I am not a therapist or a professional of any kind, and can't diagnose anyone with anything... But I am absolutely convinced that this cousin of mine is a covert/vulnerable narcissist.

The past two months have been hard. There's been a lot of having to accept things I don't want to. Re-educating myself on things I learned years ago, and learning new things, all of which support this hypothesis. A lot of having to reframe things that they have done and said and determine if it makes sense in this new reality. And it does. As much as I wish it didn't. It all makes too much sense not to be true.

I have struggled with wanting to contact this person for different reasons. Wanting to call them out. Wanting to see if they are ready to apologize. Wanting to tell them what I see in them for the purpose of making them aware so they can do something about it, if they want to. I have to keep reminding myself they are not my responsibility. That they will most likely not listen to anything I have to say and I'd be wasting time and just giving them an opportunity to hurt me more. That I can't save or change them. And that, narcissist or not, they have not only abused me, but are just generally not a healthy person to have in my life, period.

I've seen the red flags for a long time. I have been suspicious of things. Had questions. Noticed inconsistencies and lack of empathy. Lies. Deceit. Manipulations. Not just of me, but others. But thankfully, this person finally put their true I tent on full display. I guess they decided they had me in so deep I would take their abuse and wouldn't walk away, because id been in it for so long. Or maybe they felt they already lost me, because I had recently started taking better care of myself, learning to love myself, and as a result paying less attention to them and their need to dump all their problems and negative emotions onto me.

I am glad they are no longer in my life. In a sense, I think I've been wanting this relationship to end for a while, but I had no reason to cut them off until now. And yet, it hurts. I have had days lately where I've been feeling depressed for no apparent reason. I have anxiety about the smear campaign, because I know it's happening. She gossips and complains about people all the time, even when they mildly annoy her, so I know she's on the war path against me. Even though I never got close to her friends and don't really care about what they think (in a logical sense, my AVPD would beg to differ), and I'm fairly certain my family and other mutual people would know me well enough not to believe her, unless they do for their own purposes, which is definitely a possibility with my narc family. It's hard to know for sure. But the fear of what will happen next is looming.

[objectosexual]

I mentioned talking more in-depth about this in the tags of the original post but I think that sort of talk belongs here more than it does on main... Ramble incoming

It's no secret that I am hopelessly in love with Clockboy. I know from a realistic point of view, it's not reciprocated. It's probably not healthy. It's all me projecting thoughts and feelings onto an object. Him being a public object I can have no (personal) physical interactions with also complicates things. There is never going to be a reality where he will ever fully be able to meet all my physical and emotional needs in a romantic relationship (whereas my cars, for example, at least met the physical needs).

And yet... This love has not wavered at all since it began. Even on the nights when I'm in bed, alone, in physical pain because of how badly I long to be able to embrace him, it doesn't really sway my feelings. I will visit him and he will do something tiny that only I can pick up, and it will literally rekindle my love for him. It's hard to explain why this happens. I think it's me getting my hopes up over nothing, but it happens in such a way that it feels intentional.

An example I like to bring up is my trip to Disneyland in 2018. It was my first time "meeting" him in-person (to a degree; I had been to the park prior to then but I have virtually no memory of him specifically, and I was a kid. He is an ageless object but to keep things from being messy, I don't count those visits as me meeting him, especially since I wasn't even aware I was trans at age 10 lmfao). I was so excited to finally see and fully appreciate him. I don't have any distinct memories of him reacting to me in any way, until I visited him later that same day, alone from my travel party. They wanted to do something else so I opted to ride small world again and visit my boy to see his night time lighting package for the first time.

The thing that happened though was the ride started to break down, specifically, the propulsion jets were malfunctioning or something, because the ride started to drag out. Eventually I exited the show building and got stuck just before the unload dock. Within Clockboy's theoretical line of sight. For like, 15 minutes. Like this was literally my view:

I think about this so much. It felt so deliberate, even though I KNOW there was no way the big funny clock could control whether the ride works or breaks down... And yet. This has been a recurring theme for years now.

Any time a large enough gap in me visiting him occurs (usually over a month), the ride lags or breaks down. If I'm going to LEAVE for a while, the ride lags or breaks down. If he (somehow!) knows I have time to wait for the ride to open after a breakdown, it'll stay down until the last possible second and then reopen so I can get a ride in before I have to go home.

Like it happens just frequently enough that it just. Makes me wonder sometimes. Like too often to be a coincidence, but infrequently enough that it's not a like, typical ride malfunction pattern.

And again, I'm sure it's just a coincidence, and going to the park as often as I do, I'm sure some weird little things like that will happen but again, I just wonder if it's him somehow causing it. There have been other, smaller instances of him doing things, but I won't be going into those. One of them is too personal to explain, anyway.

Like. I know I technically get nothing out of this one-sided relationship other than dopamine when I see him. But it doesn't stop me from loving him with my entire heart, and I can't imagine loving him any less. I don't think it's possible.

I think Bob Iger himself could come up to me and say "Carson, you are delusional. The clock does not have feelings. It cannot love you back," and I would be unphased. I've had random people tell me that, and I've even told MYSELF that... And nothing ever changes.

I know realistically this isn't sustainable, and one day, I will no longer have these intense feelings for him. I hope everyday that this comes organically, and that we somehow "drift apart" over time, and that he isn't taken away from me due to a ride closure or disaster. But these thoughts genuinely scare me.

I try to let myself live in the moment, because why should I deny myself the opportunity to feel something so wonderful, toward something I think truly deserves all of the love in the world? If there's a nonzero chance Clockboy can feel anything, I hope he can feel that he is loved. And I hope that HE can love, too... Since he wouldn't be able to show his love to me the same way another human could, I hope the little instances of him making me linger near him are his way of trying to show me that I am loved by him.

He has done so much for me and I do truly think he is the most beautiful thing in the world. I legitimately cannot imagine my life without him at this point. Through all the joys of loving him, and the pains of not being able to be intimate with him. The warmness I feel when visiting him, and the fears of losing him. All the things I can and cannot control...

But one thing is certain: I will love him, to some degree, until the day I die. 🤍💛

*leaves this here* hi everyone, thanks for letting me be vulnerable

[peskypescatarian]

mad relationship anxiety today i dont want it!

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

New therapist appt was the other day and I've been chewing on it ever since.

There's something about the way therapists interact with my existing/suspected diagnoses that always feels really telling and like.

I could just read the "I think you self-sabotage all your relationships" pouring off this woman the entire hour.

I....don't.

I mean. A lot of people do, it's a really normal aspect of like. 60% of mental health issues.

But that's really never been my problem. My problem is that the relationships I have are extremely limited. I could count a lifetime's worth of emotionally intimate relationships on my fingers. I also have a lot of people in my life that I know and interact with positively and care about without being at all close to! But everyone else I basically never even got around to learning their names. My relationships are actually.....shockingly stable? Most of the people I'm close to I met before leaving my undergrad program (high school/college) and there's been very little change to my social circle since then.

So like. While I get the importance of helping with this when it happens (everyone deserves a stable support system!) it is genuinely pretty unhelpful to me specifically to be treated as if that is my primary symptom needing attention. Especially on the basis of an initial session where I'm basically just rattling off my on-paper history with some more detail than the intake forms had.

I actually know how to have healthy and positive relationships and the relationships that I have in my life at this time are ones that have BEEN that consistently for me for a decade or more. What I *do* need ongoing support for is the obsessions/compulsions I've been avoiding working on for the last 10 yrs because out of everything they were the least likely to end up killing me. I need someone to assess for the possibility of ADHD. I need someone who can help me retether when my grounding/embodiment gets loose. And yeah. CBT/DBT has been helpful for that. But largely because it allows me to cope with extreme amounts of psychological stress/distress when my survival systems collapse. Not because I'm at risk of blowing up my relationships during a trigger episode. What's most helpful to me is having someone who can keep up with my own systems analysis well enough to be a genuinely useful sounding board. CBT/DBT can be a really effective vessel for that, but I've also had therapists whose primary modality was just being an anthropologist at me in a clinical setting and she was the best therapist I've ever had.

I dunno. It's just frustrating when mental health care professionals are so.....functionally off track? Like if you are focusing, as a provider, on symptoms I don't present with, while dismissing symptoms I *do* it makes me feel super not-confident in your ability to provide me adequate care. And it's like my own practice as a provider makes it that much less tolerable when my own providers are being obtuse about shit. I do actually know what I need and what my care should look like. I've been doing this longer than you, unless you're already more than 20 yrs deep into your career, so maybe take a beat to assume competence before trying to diagnose me with something no provider from my past has EVER thought I fit while suggesting my existing diagnoses, that took time and work and thought to settle on, should be overturned. The most insulting part is her KNOWING we have the same job and educational background when she made these assertions. So like. It's not even like she has an excuse for talking down to me the way she did.

"Has anyone ever talked to you about the neurological impact of early childhood trauma?"

Well maam, if the therapist who diagnosed me and took me through EIGHT GODDAMN YEARS of therapy didn't manage to cover enough of that ground, I *did* also spend 3 yrs working in the child welfare system and then took courses towards a trauma specialty certification during my masters so YEAH. SOMEONE TOLD ME.

"Sometimes we see lots of unrelated diagnoses when really it's all trauma"

Yeah, and sometimes children are born with neurological/mental health needs that predate any opportunjty for trauma and even make them more vulnerable TO that trauma when it arrives. So like maybe consider that it doesn't have to be one or the other. Maybe the other diagnoses are unrelated because they're fucking unrelated.

I wish I could say I feel satisfied with the way I advocated for myself in that session but I don't, as evidenced by the fact that I'm still rehashing the conversation 72 hours later.

I just. I don't know how I went in saying I have an existing PTSD and recent OCD diagnosis but I want to assess for the possibility of ADHD because of conversations with my wife (ADHD) and my most recent therapist (qualified LICSW) and somehow leave being told she wants to change my diagnosis to borderline on the basis of a single conversation and an introductory psych history.

It also feels super irresponsible to me given the social stigma and diagnostic stigma around BPD. Like. I have diagnosed BPD before, and you know what path I pretty much always follow? Adjustment D/o for the first 6 months of care during which we do comprehensive assessment work and some long term stabilization. Once that's in place I reassess for BPD based on symptoms I have directly observed or had reported to me. I have never suggested BPD to someone on a first appt because personality disorders are notoriously fiddly to diagnose and it would be irresponsible to try to do so without either the presence of acute and explicit symptoms or long term treatment relationships. If you're going to give a client a diagnosis that is so stigmatized within our field you better be damn sure before you ever include it on their chart. Otherwise you are setting them up for serious maltreatment within the system. And if one of your early conversations isn't then about how your client can and should advocate for themselves within the system under their new diagnosis (and the ways you plan to support them in that) you can go fuck yourself.

So yeah. I'm feeling.....anxious. about my new therapist to say the least. I'm going to keep seeing her for now. The practice itself comes highly recommended and has all the psych services I need rolled into one practice so it would be exceedingly frustrating to have to leave and I don't want to get a bad reputation by therapist hopping within the practice either. So I need to stick it out a while and see if I can make this workable. At least until end of Feb. If I get there and it still isn't working out I can let her know I'd like to go back on the waitlist for another provider. But man. It fucking sucks that she already seems to have decided on a narrative before even talking symptom occurrence patterns with me.

[phoenixglacier]

I think about this a lot since Percabeth and Solangelo are in there as some of my favourite and least favourites couples respectively.

Annabeth constantly demeans Percy, calls him names, physically attacks him, and so on (fanfic also use how she's also ambitious and hence looks out for her own self-interest, and emphasise how she and Percy often disagree).

It feels like it should be straightforward that these blanket facts make an unhealthy relationship, but Percy makes it work. By the time they're ready to be and then in their relationship, Annabeth doesn't do these things to make Percy upset. She doesn't expect him to be truly insulted when she calls him names. When they get together, she's even under the impression that he's physically invulnerable because of the River Styx. Annabeth's intentions aren't what makes it okay — Percy's interpretations of them is.

See, the first five books of the series were entirely Percy's perspective. The narration had to craft a likeable character out of Annabeth, thereby contextualising all of her treatment of Percy in an acceptable manner, while still being a first-person narration by Percy. So we know that Percy understands Annabeth. We know that he doesn't spiral into low self-esteem by Annabth calling him Seaweed Brain. Annabeth isn't trying to hurt him, and Percy isn't hurt by her.

But! There are so many reasons why Percy could (and maybe even should?) be less stable than he is in canon! If a a fanfic wants to play up the bullying he experienced at school (at the hands of both his classmates and his teachers) then he should absolutely be negatively affected by Annabeth's actions! Even more so if a fanfic wants to emphasise Gabe's abuse, where he never witnessed everything being done to his mother directly, and was shielded as much as possible, but Percy was at the very least verbally abused by Gabe. Any of these experiences in his history could tip the scales into Percy being a lot more vulnerable than he truly is. Because of this, if you want to show a vulnerable Percy or address lasting scars from any of these things in his past, you also have to accept that Annabeth's behaviour is hurting him.

But in canon, that's not what happens. Percy's mortal experiences define him by making him a protector — he'll fight anyone that tries to hurt Grover or Tyson because he knows they're sensitive and will be hurt. In the meantime, he arguably becomes friends with Clarisse, who is far worse than Annabeth has ever been. As mentioned, he learns to understand Annabeth's behaviour and that she means no harm. Their arguments are almost always two-sided because neither of them will just shut their mouths and take it, so they inevitably get lots of chances to communicate and readjust. Their insults become "pet names", remnants of their silly childhood days that they look upon fondly. Percy is strong, and he had years to get used to and understand Annabeth's behaviour, and it no longer holds the surface meaning as they're roleplaying their memories from being kids.

So canonically, it works. But there's a number of hoops you have to jump through to get there. Percy had the cards stacked against him to turn out as a healthy, stable person, and Annabeth is a challenge to that emotional stability. No concrete detail has to change in canon to accept that Percy was just a little less strong and a little less okay. Percy probably would never be in love with Annabeth if not for their history together, because she does break a lot of his default rules.

None of this even goes into why Annabeth acts like this, and I'm not going to because I think an awful lot of it is summed up to "Camp Half-Blood". You know who else grew up in Camp Half-Blood? Will Solace.

So full disclaimer, I stopped reading after the first TOA book for other reasons. I've seen bits and pieces, but not well enough to know their relationship as well as percabeth. Nevertheless, I'm going to overstep and say why I think Solangelo's attempt at a copy of Percabeth doesn't work.

Let's start the same way with the face-value problems: Will doesn't physically attack Nico like Annabeth does, but he does shut down Nico when he starts talking about death and anything else along the lines of his powers, criticises him for being unsocial, tells him that everyone likes him and anything to the contrary is "in his head", expresses strong discomfort with his powers, controls what Nico is allowed to do because he is his doctor, and ridicules him when Nico says he's uncomfortable with the word "boyfriend". Of course, controlling what Nico can do is up to Nico actually listening to him, or others cooperating with Will to stop him. Everything else mentioned is categorised as "banter", and to be honest that's probably why it exists to begin with. Canon wants us to believe that all this is as light-hearted as it is with Percabeth, but it's not because:

First of all: they don't have a history. At all. Remember, Percy and Annabeth have years of learning what each other's meanings and boundaries are, and literally ages enough for them to know that the insults they started with are stupid now. In Solangelo's case, they "met" each other at the end of one book and were shown already dating in the next. Frank and Hazel were already crushing on each other when we met them, so they could get away with showing us the ending. Piper and Jason, who started from "scratch" and got together in one book, were never convincing and canonically broke up. I understand that Leo and Calypso, who got together even faster, were shown having issues together later on, which is great! And that leaves Solangelo the odd one out in terms of being the only couple here to get together off-screen and also the most "trust me bro" from canon.

I've often theorised how I would rewrite solangelo to be a relationship I like, and a lot of it is down to the missing months that we never saw. Their relationship is not convincing to the audience because we never got to see it, and we're essentially being asked to make up those few months ourselves. (Seriously, I've never shipped him with Reyna, but they had a whole book dedicating to the development or their platonic relationship and that was amazing. With Will we get basically nothing.)

Second: Nico is not as emotionally unfazed as Percy. He doesn't take insults lightly. He's hurt by what people say. He doesn't deliberately hurt others. He's strong, yes, but that's by withstanding hurt instead of not being bothered. We've been treated to two monologues in HOH and several POV chapters in BOO to specifically confirm this.

Will claims (and I don't believe this) that Camp Half-Blood thinking of him as an outsider was just "in his head". But if this is true, then that means Nico is extra sensitive to other people's comments and actions. If it's not true, then Nico has been through years of social outcasting — and the ptsd from both possibilities is the same. This is different from when Annabeth insults Percy for being dumb, because they both know he isn't. Will is attacking a part of Nico's self. Nico already has ownership for his own powers and just wishes others wouldn't ostracise him for them. Canon doesn't even pretend he's not annoyed, it just has Nico remove himself from his powers such that "his powers" scare people but "he" is loved by Will.

Third, and I think this is the most important one for me: They are woefully unequal. Nico spent the last two books making so much progress with new friends: Reyna, Jason, Hazel, Coach Hedge, mainly. And they're all gone. Instead, they're at Camp Half-Blood, the place that Nico was convinced disliked him. This is Will's turf. Those are the facts that begin their relationship. This wasn't the reality when Percabeth got together — at that point, the camp belonged to both of them, and Percy was the leader with Annabeth as his right hand. Canon asks us to believe that this inequality to made moot in the missing months.

The inequality, painfully, keeps going. It places Will in the position of his doctor. Unlike Hazel who simply cared about his health, or Coach Hedge who had knowledge of medicine and treated him with it, Will calls it "doctor's orders", deliberately implying that Nico has no choice. And I do think this is deliberate, because Will has been responsible for the entire camp for so long including wars, so he really must have his patients follow his orders. Even if this authoritative relationship depends on Nico upholding it, it does exist and is painful for me to read, because never once does it read like the expected doctor-related banter.

As the ultimate cherry of the inequality, Will's identity seems to revolve around being Nico's boyfriend — a direct mirror of their real-world popularity. The Doylian explanation that Nico was hugely popular for several reasons and Will was brought in to be his boyfriend bleeds into their book world, where Will's job is to be Nico's ultimate happy ending that fixes his entire life even the parts that don't need to be fixed or aren't his to fix. To make this possible, Nico ends up doing anything for his ultimate love Will Solace, which is very in character for him considering his disastrous one-sided crush with Percy (that being the comparison is not exactly positive), and Will becomes Nico's caretaker because he's never shown a non-hormone-related reason why he feel in love with Nico at first sight. Nico and Will's relationship seems forced and, worse, like they're both desperate to keep it. Nico is a vulnerable person that might believe he can't get anything better, while also having deep scars from this kind of treatment. Will doesn't seem to like Nico's powers, home, or attitude, which gives the same kind of trainwreck warning signs as someone marrying a prince while hating the fact that he's a part of the royal family. Love is love and all that but it doesn't automatically make you happy.

In an attempt to "fix" Nico's life and make him happy, the writer misses the mark on what all those fanfic writers actually wanted Nico to get out of a relationship and hit a lot of things that make us uncomfortable. Apart from the blaming and the taking away his control, Solangelo assumes that Nico has to change in order for people to like him, and not everyone agrees. Then Percabeth's banter dynamic is layered on top of it, and all the issues seem compounded. Percabeth only works because the canon did a lot of work to convince us!

And Percabeth and Solangelo both have a last thing in common: they're both portrayed as so completely in love that they'll probably have to destroy the world if they broke up. What are they going to do, be normal about it?

Thinking about how easy it is for fanfic writers to twist Percabeth and Solangelo into toxic, unhealthy relationships whilst maintaining a surprisingly good portion of the official content's nuances - as if all materials are already there and all they need is just a soft push towards to right (or wrong) direction.

And Rick tells me they're supposed to be canon's exemplary, top-shelf, happily-every-after couples? He's not doing a good job at it.

[storyofasub]

I was disappointed to hear that her-master does not respect safewords. it completely changed my opinion of him as a long time follower. Very sad to learn this. I hope you are ok.

Am I ok.

I know that wasn't actually meant in the way I took it, but honestly, I dunno if I am ok.

This post is going to be huge, sorry. Idc tbh, this topic needs to be (that's part of the problem).

I've avoided this entire discussion because, after I saw how people handled the last one (derision, name-calling, white privilege, either a lack of desire and/or time and/or ability of comprehension), I had predicted another blowup involving the same circles. I had gently suggested to HM that perhaps this topic is not one to open in this environment (please forgive me, HM).

One reason is this. Over the last few years, social media, in general, has descended into an extremely low-res hunting ground where almost all topics are black and white. Tumblr seems to be an even more exaggerated example of that for some reason, I speculate this has something to do with the explicit content ban that drove away a lot of moderate people, but who knows. As such, I knew this topic would not be met with the time and emotional bandwidth required to sit back and consider alternative nuances on an *extremely* delicate subject.

Here's another reason, and the main reason that maybe I'm not ok.

(As an aside, I'm a painfully private person and I find it quite difficult to open up and be vulnerable with people generally, let alone strangers on the internet, I don't share a huge amount of my personal life online, so bear with me as I struggle through this.)

I have never, in my life, had a deeper, more complete, more fulfilling, healthier, truly beautiful experience of Dominance and submission, and of personal growth, than I have with her-master. I have had many conversations where he has agonised and wrestled with whether what he might do was safe and beneficial for his girl, even when she had begged for it. And the pain I'm experiencing now is because I'm being reminded of something I have understood for a long time, and been afraid of. That his level of empathy, his level of knowledge, his understanding of psychology, and his dedication to the personal health and his love for his owned submissive.... might be something I never find to that degree in anyone else. And thinking about that fills me with so much fear and dread that I almost never vocalise it, even to him.

This is highly relevant to this conversation. Why? Because I think a 'no safeword' dynamic can ONLY EVER, ever, ever, be even remotely possible in... probably much less than one in a million relationships. Can you even imagine the amount of personal responsibility that heaps on someone? I think to basically any good Dominant person, the mere thought of that should absolutely terrify you. If it ever comes up in a casual or flippant way, it's almost definitely a horrible red flag, one that should make you question the health of your relationship.

I believe that 99.5% of the time, safewords are absolutely necessary. I believe that if ANYONE who claims to be Dominant is the one to propose not having a safeword to you, they are very very likely to either be dangerous or stupid, or worse - both.

But here's how I know that the 0.5% exist... because I'm one of the people who knows, deep in my heart, that THAT is the place where I belong. But in my life, I've probably only known 1 or 2 other women living in that space. Women who dedicated their lives to their partner in a way most of us can barely understand. And so, personally, I just don't think this conversation is relevant or healthy for most people. But... it gets a little lonely, so I understand the desire to express what's in your heart, throw out a net and see if anyone else out there understands you.

Final thought. If by some miracles and prayers, as a Dominant who might secretly desire this, you do find yourself in that unicorn of a relationship, humble yourself and before saying yes spend some time figuring out if you have reached a place in your life where you are able to accept this responsibility. And always remember this quote that should haunt you:

To that which you tame, you owe your life.

[dragonmuse]

Could you tell us more about your running? Why you do it, what it means to you, and if you want, your typical mileage/paces?

I can! It's a long explanation, sorry. You may all have noticed I don't do concise really.

Content warning: health and weight talk to follow (no specific numbers mentioned)

I am not a natural athlete to start with and I much prefer curling up on my couch then working out much of the time. Periodically over the last decade or so, I have re-resolved myself and managed to make it a few months before falling off again.

Then the pandemic happened. And my blood pressure, never awesome, started to soar. I was working full time as was my husband and we had a kid at home, so like for so many of us, it was pretty stressful and my relationship with food went totally toxic. On the plus side though, I was working out my gender identity, was back in therapy for the first time since my teens and got over a seventeen year paralyzing fear of the dentist to finally get my teeth fixed.

I arrived in February this year the largest I've ever been and probably the most mentally healthy I'd been in a decade. I don't mind being fat, I've been some level of fat my entire adult life. So none of this was in the goal to become less fat, I want to be amply clear on that. It's a byproduct, but not the goal.

The goal was twofold, to build a better relationship with food and to get my blood pressure down as much as I can naturally. I will go on meds if required, but would love to put it off if I can. My doctor thinks this is possible, so I'm operating under her guidance (plus some common sense, someone save us all from doctors who think fast, extreme weight loss is a good thing).

So I bought the cheapest pair of running shoes that still looked like they'd hold up and set out. I started with a couch to five k program and on completion just kept going.

Why running?

I can just step outside my front door and do it. I live in a quiet neighborhood and that's where I do all my running. Just me and whatever other suburban dweller is out getting in their morning air.

I hate gyms. I don't want to go to a class or be taught how to use a machine. Working out already makes me feel vulnerable, I do not wish to interface with anyone else.

I have, against all odds, come to enjoy doing it. This didn't happen the last two times I tried this and I think it was because of the treadmill. This year I have run through rain, freezing and melting temperatures and I have no regrets. I really prefer being outside and there is something exhilarating about taking your frail human meat sack out into the elements and saying 'ha! I am capable of running down a sprinting prey animal out of sheer endurance, not that I would, but you know the theory is sound'.

I can totally disassociate at a certain point. A lot of exercise requires you to be very present. As long as I'm paying enough attention not to get hit by a car or fall over, I can think about what the hell Izzy or Eddy or someone else is up to and daydream my way through working out. It's awesome and has made many words flow.

So what does it mean to me? It means trying to stay on this fucked up planet as long as I can for my kid. Yes, I like feeling healthy for myself blah blah blah, but I brought my kid into the world and I'll be damned if I'm leaving him a parent short for even a minute longer than I have to. This is survival, baby. I ain't eating this much fucking salad because it's fun.

And...okay yeah, it means that I'm proud of myself every time I do it. Every time I get up and move this shambling mortal shell and make it do things it couldn't do even a few months ago is pretty cool, I guess.

As far as mileage and pace, I am so fucking slow, but I am getting faster! Mileage is also building up. I run two to three times on a weekday at about 15:45 a mile for two and a half miles. On Saturdays when I have more time, I go for three and a half miles and last time I got to 15:09 a mile which was frankly miraculous. In March I was lucky to get under 17 minutes for two miles, so I'm pretty pleased with that progress.

Right now, I'm trying to build endurance and speed very slowly. I don't really have time to go for a long run more than once a week, but my next goal is to hit four miles on a Saturday and maybe get a 14 minute mile going.

Also, no one asked, but I listened to an 80s cardio station on pandora for the first few months and that's where most of the titles for the stories came from. Recently switched to the larger mix of a running channel to change things up.

[mauriceclivealec]

sorry if ppl may have already asked you this but, i've watched the movie recently and felt like a lot of intimate moments between clive and maurice aren't shown onscreen to us? had they been lovers until risley was arrested, the fight and clive's travel? did clive cheat on anne? they were probably seeing each other between 1910 and 1911, right? i'm sorry for the amount of questions but i'm rly curious djdj

Clive and Maurice never have physical intimacy. That’s one of the central points of the story – in E. M Forster’s novel and in James Ivory’s film. For three years, Maurice and Clive have a ‘platonic’ – i.e. sexless, non-physical – relationship. 

This is a central reason why Clive is ultimately wrong for Maurice, and why Maurice finds happiness with Alec.

Even though Forster was writing in 1913-14, at a date when any hint of sex between men was illegal in the UK and punishable by imprisonment – and he wrote Maurice as a 35-year-old gay virgin who did not believe he would ever be able to have a physical relationship legally in his lifetime – he did a brave thing. He wrote a novel which shows that physical/sexual love between men is healthy and normal – not sick – and he gave his lovers who form a physical relationship, Maurice and Alec, a happy ending, without punishment. 

Maurice is also a novel in which two contrasting 1910s attitudes to same-sex love between men are debated (lots has been written about this), and this is where Clive fits in. 

Clive’s stated position (born out of self-repression and/or fear) is that same-sex love between men is only acceptable IF there is no sex. (Remember the film discussion on the punt in Cambridge, where Risley calls Clive ‘cold as a fish on a marble slab’?)

One key film scene where this is made really clear is when Maurice and Clive drive out into the Fens near Cambridge and lie down in the grass. It’s clear thar Maurice wants to take things further physically (check out James Wilby’s acting!) – but Clive will not even let Maurice kiss him properly on the mouth, and when Maurice tries to put a hand inside Clive’s shirt, Clive stops him. Clive says: ‘I think it would bring us down’. 

Similarly, the point of the scene in the novel (= the deleted film scene titled ‘The night before Greece’), where Clive asks Maurice if he can climb into bed with him, is that this is torment for Maurice because Clive won’t permit anything physical, although it’s a torment that (after 3 years of this) Maurice has trained himself to accept:

"I'm cold and miserable generally. I can't sleep. I don't know why."

Maurice did not misunderstand [Clive]. He knew and [had convinced himself by now that he] shared [Clive’s] opinions on this point. They lay side by side without touching. Presently Clive said, "It's no better here. I shall go." Maurice was not sorry, for he could not get to sleep either, though for a different reason, and he was afraid Clive might hear the drumming of his heart, and guess what it was. (Maurice, end of Ch 21)

Incidentally, in a letter to Forster written as early as 1915, Lytton Strachey (one of the trusted friends to whom Forster had lent an early draft of Maurice to read) questioned why Maurice puts up with this from Clive. “He [Maurice] was a strong healthy youth ... how the Dickens could Clive restrain him?”

Forster implies that Clive’s marriage to Anne, too, is more or less sexless, and certainly passionless:

So much could never be mentioned. He never saw her naked, nor she him. They ignored the reproductive and the digestive functions. (Maurice, end of Ch 33)

And, in the closing scenes, when Maurice returns to Penge/Pendersleigh by night to tell Clive his news about Alec before disappearing for ever from Clive’s life, Clive’s entire reaction is to treat physical sex between men as wrong. Clive recoils from the joy Maurice (and Forster) can’t resist sharing:

"I have shared with Alec," [Maurice] said after deep thought.

"Shared what?"

"All I have. Which includes my body."

Clive sprang up with a whimper of disgust. ... [H]is thin, sour disapproval, his dogmatism, the stupidity of his heart, revolted Maurice, who could only have respected hatred.

"I put it offensively," [Maurice] went on, "but I must make sure you understand. Alec slept with me in the Russet Room that night when you and Anne were away."

"Maurice—oh, good God!"

"Also in town. Also—" here he stopped.

Even in his nausea Clive turned to a generalization – it was part of the mental vagueness induced by his marriage. "But surely—the sole excuse for any relationship between men is that it remain purely platonic."

"I don't know. I've come to tell you what I did."

(Maurice, Ch 46)

[loveisneurotic]

Kaguya-sama Blind Reaction/Analysis: S1E1

Hello everyone, this is my blog which I am currently using to react to and analyze Kaguya-sama: Love Is War much more seriously than I should analyze any romcom.

I have only seen the first episode of the anime, which this post shall explore using far too many words. If I'm feeling particularly motivated, I may read the manga as well.

My analysis will contain spoilers. If you're thinking of watching this show and haven't seen it yet, I recommend you at least go check out the first episode yourself before reading any further. I don't know what the rest of the show is like, but what I've seen so far has been both entertaining and thought-provoking.

I'm going in mostly blind, but not entirely blind. There are a few images of the anime and manga that I have been exposed to, although without the attached context. Due to cultural osmosis and the sheer popularity of this work, perhaps that was almost inevitable.

Figure 1.1.1: Why did this guy write an essay about a single episode of an ongoing romcom?

Kaguya-sama: Love Is War

Season 1 Episode 1

I Will Make You Invite Me to a Movie / Kaguya Wants to Be Stopped / Kaguya Wants It

Power dynamics in relationships

Figure 1.1.2: Immediately, the mangaka's tastes become clear.

I heard a saying once that really stuck with me: "The partner who cares the least has all of the power."

In the world of dating, I often sincerely believed this saying. You may yearn for someone's affection, but the other person need not give it to you until they are willing and ready. No matter how much you want it, you can't make someone more interested in you, unless you resort to being roundabout, such as adding some mystery and intrigue to your courtship. But is that excessive?

I once felt a potential lover slipping through my grasp, and before I knew it, I found myself chasing after them. As I was yearning for their attention, I felt as if I'd lost my dignity. It was humiliating. Painful. Was it just that they weren't the right person for me? Or was I not funny enough? Not charismatic enough? Not interesting enough? Too clingy? Too talkative? Should I have been more distant and given them more space? Did I seem too weak? Too eager? How should I have maximized my desirability? Regardless, I had surely lost. Perhaps they wanted the satisfaction and validation of conquering me. Playing me for a fool and asserting their superiority by being so distant. Isn't that right? Or is that just insecurity speaking? At what point is it ideal to cut one's losses and walk away?

If someone desperately wants the object of their affection to desire them, does that make them pathetic? Does it make them a loser? If you show more vulnerability and desire than the other person, does that truly make you the weak one in a relationship?

These questions plague our two protagonists and seem to be a driving force behind the main conflict. Since I have also grappled with how much to reveal my own feelings of desire, I find Kaguya-sama: Love Is War to be a particularly fascinating show.

Desire without action

Figure 1.1.3: Our protagonists are gifted with impressively high academic intelligence paired with impressively low emotional intelligence.

The show wastes no time in introducing us to our two main protagonists. Kaguya was born into a family of high stature (and says "ara ara" frequently enough to power a small country of weebs), whereas Shirogane is a "commoner" (Kaguya's word, not mine) who worked hard to reach the pinnacle of the student body. Like timid schoolchildren, they're crushing on each other, and yet they refuse to admit it due to their pride. Instead, they focus on getting their "opponent" to confess their love first.

What stuck out to me immediately is how they both have different ideas of what their relationship would be like. Shirogane envisions Kaguya as blushing, shy, and conventionally cute, whereas Kaguya (thankfully) envisions herself taking absolute dominance over Shirogane (which plenty of people should see coming as a character trait after the anime's very first scene). The bad news about this is that their two fantasies are at odds. The good news about this is that the mangaka has fantastic taste -- you can learn a lot about a storyteller based on the characterization of a love interest or lead character of the author's preferred gender.

In the event that the two of them become an actual couple, I wonder how on Earth they'll reach a compromise as to how they'll treat each other. Perhaps they will have to figure that out before they can even get that intimate.

I appreciate that we get to see both of their perspectives. It hammers home how everyone has a different truth in regards to what they desire and what they experience, and the show does not hold back when it comes to showing just how different these truths can be -- such as a certain lunch-themed sequence that I will talk about later. This works to great dramatic and comedic effect.

That said, when you spend your time fantasizing about what could happen instead of actually taking action, time is not so friendly to you.

Half a year passes.

Figure 1.1.4: Two geniuses dedicate their pride to wasting their life and energy.

Immediately, I got the impression that whoever wrote this segment of the story knows what they're doing. This is too real. And by "too real", I mean I very much appreciate the realism. How many of us have waited for ages (or for eternity) to confess our feelings to a specific someone?

This is the curse of having a crush and being incapable of acting on it. It's also why I hate having crushes.

Manufacturing affection in others, AKA the extraction of vulnerability

Figure 1.1.5: A plan is devised to weaponize jealousy in the name of affection.

To express your truest feelings means being vulnerable. That implies taking a risk and feeling responsible for any potential consequences of rejection, as well as putting our dignity on the line. It would be so much easier for the object of our affection to make themselves vulnerable instead. So instead of being direct and honest, we act indirect. We drop hints. We act suggestively, but not explicitly. We may even place them in situations where we think they are more likely to confess. If they don't pick up on it, we can pretend we didn't mean anything by it. That way, we don't have to risk our dignity. We can just wait for them to make the move.

It sucks.

Incidentally, it sucks even more when both you and your love interest are thinking that way.

It sucks infinitely more when both you and your love interest are COMMITTED to thinking that way.

Someone has to break the deadlock, whether that's immediately or eventually.

If this show isn't one of those romcoms where the status quo never changes ever (judging by the quality of writing, I have faith that it isn't), then at some point, either Shirogane or Kaguya is going to have to be explicit about how they really feel. And it's going to feel scarier to them than anything else they've ever done.

It's gonna be great.

If we could all grow up and live in environments where it's safe and encouraged for all of us to be honest about how we feel and what we want, surely love would be much less painful for so many people.

Chaos theory

Figure 1.1.6: If your prospective lover won't protect you, then your friend definitely will.

Chika is the ideal wild card and agent of chaos in this arena of love.

From a writing perspective, Chika is immensely useful. The mangaka probably could have gotten by without a third character in the mix, but she serves as a catalyst and an unknown element, able to create unpredictability and subversion of expectations. For a comedy-oriented story, this is invaluable.

Blissfully unaware of the mental turmoil that plagues our two lovesick dorks, she is able to unintentionally invalidate whatever schemes that Kaguya or Shirogane spent so much mental energy on, which adds extra comedy and tension for the audience. She is also an effective vehicle for Kaguya's jealousy and projection, as seen in the lunchbox scene which I have so graciously foreshadowed.

Figure 1.1.7: We have confirmed visual on an unidentified fourth person. Chekhov would love this. From their posture, I wonder if they'll be a gloomy character?

Misunderstandings and assumptions

I've heard that most interpersonal conflicts in life emerge from misunderstandings. In the absence of communication, assumptions are born and give rise to misunderstandings.

You may know where I'm going with this. Let's talk about the lunchbox sequence.

Figure 1.1.8 (not pictured because tumblr wishes to deny me of my image spam): Kaguya is too prideful to admit she thinks that a couple is doing something cute.

Figure 1.1.9: Pride is considered a sin for a reason.

From a writing perspective, I was impressed by the lack of romantic intentions in Shirogane in this whole sequence. Not once did he try to get Kaguya to show vulnerability to him. Instead, Kaguya is the only one spinning the situation in a romantic way, while Shirogane's driving force is the misunderstanding that Kaguya is looking down on him for what he eats. Because of this misunderstanding, Shirogane doubles down and makes his food even better, making the situation even more complicated and more stressful for Kaguya. This was definitely my favorite comedy sequence from the first episode.

I appreciate that the show has demonstrated the ability to create these scenarios where one of the characters doesn't even have love on their mind, but there are still romantic thoughts coming from the other character which drives the drama. It gives me a lot of faith in the variety this show will have to offer, and makes me excited to watch more.

When it comes to comedy rooted in misunderstandings, it is important to have miscommunication or lack of communication. In order to resolve a misunderstanding, you need to talk about it. For a pairing as dysfunctional as Kaguya and Shirogane, expecting healthy communication sounds highly unreasonable, which makes them prime material for a whole world of misunderstandings.

Misunderstandings are rooted in assumptions about what the other person meant when they said something or made a certain gesture or expression. When Kaguya glared at Shirogane and his food, he didn't even think to ask "What's the matter?" He just made an assumption about how she felt. I wonder if trying to understand Kaguya's feelings would be considered a sign of weakness by Shirogane?

A prerequisite to initiating an emotional conversation is the desire to understand or be understood by the other person -- assuming that your assumptions haven't already built a narrative for you. It is far easier to make assumptions than it is to attempt any sort of understanding.

In the end, Shirogane fled, unwilling to confront or attempt to understand the intense and passive-aggressive Kaguya. Kaguya feels that she cannot directly ask to try his lunch, so perhaps this is the closest she can get to initiating such a conversation with him at this time. Despite their mind games where they imagine the reactions of their opponent, they still have a lot of difficulty understanding each other.

I am curious to see if this prospective couple's communication skills and emotional intelligence will improve over the course of the story.

The burden of potential romance

Figure 1.1.10: Even the infallible genius Kaguya succumbs to superficial jealousy. It's "mind over matter" versus "matter over mind". That's how the saying goes, right?

Chika is a free spirit, able to ask Shirogane for whatever she wants without being neurotic. That is the power of not being bounded by a crush. Kaguya, who lacks that degree of freedom, briefly loathes her for experiencing something that Kaguya cannot ask for. It's amazing how much someone's feelings for a friend can change without a single word being spoken between them. All it takes is an action, unintentional or not, combined with the raw strength of insecurity. Just as quickly, the status quo can return back to normal too, with the act of properly making up.

To Chika, asking for food from someone doesn't mean anything at all, whereas with Kaguya, it is an admission of defeat. In that sense, a relationship that will only ever be platonic brings peace of mind, whereas a relationship that can be potentially romantic brings leagues upon leagues of anxiety if the outcome is of great concern.

Love is neurotic.

Is love worth the pain? For some people, it is not. For others, the reward is immense -- but only if you can make sure your relationship with this person doesn't end up being a nightmare for your emotional health.

Love and self-identity

The final scene of the episode surprised me in a good way. It's a brief departure from the comedy, and reveals a more heartfelt side of the show.

Kaguya's servant asks her an insightful question. It is substantially more insightful than I would expect from any romcom: "If you fell in love some day, would you wait for that person to confess their love, like now? Or would you confess your love?" I found myself immediately curious to hear Kaguya's answer, since I knew it would be highly informative about her character.

"If that time comes, I would consider the risk of someone stealing him first and come to the one rational conclusion." Even in the realm of love, Kaguya seems precise and calculating. It's as if she hesitates to give a straight answer, but then she confirms: "Of course I would go."

Figure 1.1.11: "Please understand."

It is not embarrassment or rejection that Kaguya fears; it is the absolute destruction of her identity and sense of self. Kaguya is the daughter of a family that practically runs the country. In her mind, everyone yearns for her and wishes to serve her. Turning that around and reaching out to another person to express her own desire would be a direct contradiction of that. It is probably a similar situation for Shirogane, where the infallible self-image he has built up is being put at risk during his romantic duels against Kaguya.

Kaguya clearly feels trapped. She and Shirogane see each other as threats to be conquered, but in reality, they both share a mutual enemy that is much more imposing and insidious: their own simultaneous disgust at the idea of vulnerability.

Their freedom is dominated by their insecurities, and so, even despite their impressive stature, they are still very human. Their upbringing that has lead them to become so accomplished may be more of a curse than a blessing, due to the resulting pride and self-image they likely feel pressured to uphold.

It is hard to cast aside a lie that you have bought into for your whole life.

If our two protagonists wish to have a chance of establishing a healthy romantic relationship, they have a lot of their own demons to overcome first. If they cannot set aside their pride and reach mutual understanding, they have no hope.

Until then, they will both remain trapped in a hell of their own design, however tragically comedic it may be.

My hopes for this story's future

I can tell that the mangaka, unlike far too many writers all over the world, actually seems to have a solid understanding of romance and the conflict that arises within. I've watched too many anime that place huge focus on the "will they or won't they" crap which never runs any deeper than one or both of the characters being too embarrassed to just say what they're thinking, without any sort of convincing mental blocker. In that case, it's clearly just manufactured drama which is designed to pad out the story and waste your time rather than pose interesting questions and themes. In the case of Kaguya and Shirogane, the two of them have substantial communication issues which are depicted in a comedic yet mature way, which I have found engaging.

I very much hope that the show will more deeply explore the themes and questions surrounding the ideas of vulnerability, emotional intelligence, and superiority within relationships. Kaguya and Shirogane have been set up to be great vehicles for such exploration, and I hope the mangaka can capitalize on that, especially if our protagonists can confront these issues directly.

My impression is that the ending will make or break this story. If the mangaka can pull it off well, I can already believe the payoff will be hugely satisfying.

Of course, in order to get to that point, we'll have to see a certain something. It has to do with the most sacred word amongst romcom enthusiasts: "progress". Indeed, after spending chapters upon chapters watching two characters bumble around amidst the same exact status quo, those little signs of advancements in a relationship are highly rewarding.

Underneath all of their aggression, if we can see Kaguya and Shirogane slowly open up to each other and realize the benefits of vulnerability, I think we could witness something really beautiful and really emotionally cathartic.

I've still only seen one episode, but I believe the mangaka has laid a fantastic groundwork for a series and can do a great job developing upon what I've seen so far. On that note, I will surpass our prideful protagonists by opening my heart to this story and entrusting it with my vulnerability, believing it can deliver satisfying development and resolution. You can do it!

Closing thoughts

I did not expect to write so much about a single episode of an ANIME of all things, but here we are. If only I could conjure this kind of power back when I actually needed it in high school English class!

The first episode alone is already so rich with characterization and themes that I managed to find quite a lot to talk about. Given how much I found myself relating to the characters and some of their situations, it's clear to me how this show became so popular. Not only are the animation, direction, and writing excellent, but also many people can probably relate to love feeling like a battlefield.

I do not want to believe in the idea of winners and losers in relationships. That idea creeps into my head whenever I'm having trouble keeping the interest of a new date, and I find myself wondering where those thoughts even come from. Lately, I have been reflecting on the way I relate to other people. Perhaps I've started experiencing this show at a time in my life when I most needed it, and that's why I felt driven to write such a large analysis.

This show poses some very interesting questions about romance that I do not actually know the answer to at the time of writing. I do not know yet how much the show is actually going to explore these themes. Regardless, I appreciate how this show is helping me reflect, and I am curious to see if and how the mangaka will answer some of the questions brought about by the story's themes.

This is a show that I'll most likely have to pace myself with. There was so much to process in this first episode alone. If I went any faster, I'm not sure if I'd even catch all of the details and character moments. I'm excited to move onto the second episode soon.

A highly subjective footnote about my cultured tastes

I'm glad that Kaguya is a sadistic dom with a gentle and vulnerable side, solely on the basis of that being my favorite personality type in a love interest. It also helps that it makes Kaguya's fantasies that much funnier with Shirogane acting so out of character. I feel like this show was made for me.

What was I writing about again? Oh yeah, writing a gigantic wall of text about an anime romcom. Somehow, I spent an entire day on this essay. Hopefully someone got a kick out of it.

[greyias]

If Grey had ever been interested in a W|W relationship, who do you think she would have become involved in? Any character from the game?

I have a feeling I'm not going to be able to explain this well, but I'll give it my best shot. 😅

Grey is bi-demi, so I'm not really sure "interested" would be the right way to phrase, but it's a little hard for me to put into words how attraction works with her. I tried to go into it a little in Girl Talk and the Date Night fic, but since those aren't from her perspective it gets a little muddled.

She never really has that "oh no he/she's hot" type of reaction for people, it's all very emotion and relationship-based. Which is not to say she hasn't been genuinely curious about certain experiences, or something akin to crushes but... again, it's complicated.

(There's a reason I write in Theron's POV most of the time -- it's hard to translate what I know she feels into words in anything approaching an eloquent manner.)

As a long term healthy relationship, I don't really see anything working out with her outside of Theron. It has nothing to do with his gender, but more because of the way the two of them interact with each other, the lack of power dynamics between them, and the way their own respective baggage in a way compliments each other rather than weighs them down. With Theron, attraction/sex is an aspect of their relationship, but it’s really a secondary or tertiary one at best. It’s more of a way they express things.

In-game, she has technically kissed (or almost kissed) two ladies: Lana and Lemda.

Lemda happened when I was finally catching up on content several years back, and had been bummed that I'd seemingly locked her out of romance entirely because of the way the choices in vanilla worked. At the time I had consoled myself with "maybe she's ace", but also knew there was some lgbt content in Rise of the Hutt Cartel, so I figured I'd run it and just see what it was like. Unfortunately the flirts for the Lemda romance is... WILDLY out of character for Grey. Like, just completely not her at all. (It will work well for my f!Smuggler, though.) So I've kind of scrubbed that from Grey's personal canon.

The thing with Lana is... interesting. See, when I was originally running Shadow of Revan, I honestly had no idea who I was going with, and still feeling annoyed that I had been locked out of the vanilla romance options because of poor writing/architectural decisions (but that's another discussion entirely), I decided to take every flirt. I was also running all of the content blind and essentially spoiler free, so I had no idea where anything was going.

To my great relief, almost every single one of the SoR flirts were very in character, some even edging towards her "oblivious flirting" personality that I felt she kind of had. I find it funny, because in Forged Alliances, Lana is much more open to flirting and less standoffish than Theron, so I genuinely thought she might wind up with Lana for a while. Of course, that all went out the window the moment Theron got captured.

When I got into KotFE, I genuinely didn't know that Theron was returning. There was no indication on any of the official website/game materials at the time indicating that he'd actually come back, and so when Lana showed up for the rescue rather than him, I was like "Oh... I guess he's gone?" and kind of felt guilty but took several of the flirting options.

(And then later got the e-mail from him and was like "BUT IS HE COMING BACK? WHEN? WHAT HAVE I DONE???")

So I've got a very convoluted explanation for all of that that might one day get written down, but canonically they either kiss or almost kiss, but it goes nowhere. Which honestly, I think is for the best. I just don't see anything between them working long term. Lana's morals are way too different and contradictory (which is really apparent if you run an exclusively DS!Outlander), and it would eventually drive a wedge between them. They both care for each other, but they would not be good for each other in a romantic sense.

The only other option that in theory could work would be Kira, as that’s the closest person she has a similar dynamic to Theron with. Although ultimately I see that as a very close platonic relationship. When I was originally running through vanilla way back in the day, I was actually a little disappointed there was no option to romance Kira on a f!Knight, but ultimately I think I personally wound up liking the platonic option more. As much as there is a dearth of wlw content in popular media, there is also a distinct lack of strong female friendships* portrayed in the same way strong male friendships are. Hell, Kira tries to fight Vaylin to free the Knight during the timeskip (if Hexid isn't lying about that anyway), so she's totally ride or die.

(*Tangent: Or at least at the time I felt that way. I honestly still can't point to a female buddy duo that has the same feel of male buddy duos. I think the representation has gotten better, but I still haven't found anything with the same depth you can practically trip over in almost every major media property.)

Okay, tangent aside, as I was running the Onslaught epilogue, it was extremely obvious to me that Kira has feelings for the f!Knight, regardless if you initiate the romance or not. (And that particular ship had sailed long ago.)

Ultimately, the power dynamics between a Knight and Kira is what makes it not work for me. Even though they're on equal footing at the time of the romance (and really, are basically partners and not mentor/protege even when a male Knight romance starts), for Grey in particular, the fact that Kira was not only her student at one point, but also a member of her crew, means Grey feels responsible for Kira's well being in a far different way than she does with Theron and Lana. I think the fact that it seems to be implied that there might have been multiple torture sessions the Knight participated in in regards to their crewmates while in Vitiate's thrall would put this level of guilt that adds too much complication to work past.

Even before Onslaught though, I kind of had this headcanon that sometime prior to Balmorra, but sometime after Kira’s knighting, she sneaks some wine or something on board, and get a little tipsy. Grey has a tendency to get a little flirty when drinking, although again, quite oblivious to the fact that she is. I’ve always suspected Kira’s a bit more experienced due to growing up on her own and having to navigate all of that by herself, so I think the subject of romance/kissing/whatnot comes up during this episode that leads to a moment where something could happen, but Kira doesn’t let it because she values their current dynamic too much to risk changing that. And ultimately, it doesn’t really need to change, because they’re ride or die for each other regardless of romance.

Which I guess is a really long way of answering it. So I guess while there’s potential, I ultimately don’t see any of it really working in a romantic sense.