#tbh i feel like a pretty large portion of my childhood was just me getting extremely stressed about things

[zanderbobs]

Thinking about that time when I was 10 and my dog (a puppy at the time) managed to get my homework book off the shelf and tear most of it to pieces. I was absolutely distraught (because nothing stressed 10 year old me out more than the possibility of getting told off for not having my homework) and when I brought the torn up book in to show the supply teacher we had that the dog had honest to god eaten my homework she just jokingly pretended to not believe me and laughed when I got even more distressed

[incorrect-ikevamp-quotes]

why does jean warn up to mc so quickly? ikevamp makes it clear that jean is a pretty reserved person and doesn't open up or let people in easily but he seems to let mc in quite quickly and it confuses me quite a bit.

Oh boy, where to begin with this one.

Well, I have a lot of Feelings^TM about this, but I'll try to be concise. Essentially, I think Jeanne doesn't recover in the other routes--or the general storyline--largely because he's just a lot to unpack narratively speaking. And without some pretty direct intervention, he has a hard time healing. MC’s direct intervention was meaningful because it was focused, consistent, and adapted to Jeanne’s specific needs. She also doesn’t make light of his experiences which is key; she fully understands that she can’t fathom what he’s been through. There is a very weighty respect and acknowledgement, a seriousness with which she treats his wounds that’s important.

It’s easy to make this a “why is MC nOt LiKe ThE oThEr GiRlS” but honestly that’s just not the sense I get when I look at all the information available to us. 

That being said, I also just feel like every person's recovery from traumatic events doesn't really look the same? I mean Leonardo’s cptsd isn’t going to operate the same way Jeanne’s wartime/Inquisition cptsd is going to operate. Some people require very individualized healing, others will often require a large scale group effort to lift them up.

Typically people don't ever just get over what happened to them and never worry about it again, either. It's usually a process of coping; the hope is that with time you find healthy ways to deal with grief and move forward. Therapists aren't magicians, they just help people process painful experiences/thoughts. It's honestly up to individuals to find meaningful ways to implement these tactics. 

Tl; dr: My contention is that Jeanne doesn’t open up or choose to stay alive because MC magically heals him, rather his recovery is a convergence of many people’s efforts and hopes that he stays alive. Gilles (he insists that Jeanne must live, asks him to promise), MC (affirms and bolsters that promise), Comte (makes a second life and recovery possible)--and in no small measure Mozart and Napoleon--all make an active effort to buoy him. As people often say, it takes a village to raise a child.

While Jeanne seems to respond most powerfully to MC’s attempts, it feels more like a product of chemistry/compatibility than it does a random cop out. There is no insinuation that only romantic love can heal; after all, MC gets close to him without any romantic intentions at first. They’re just good friends? It’s more that their feelings simply moved in a different direction after a point, which doesn’t necessarily happen all the time. Jeanne is also incredibly moved by Mozart’s love for him as a friend, Comte’s love for him as a father, and even Gilles’ love as a comrade to an extent. If anything, without their input Jeanne’s capacity for romantic love would be questionable at best.

Now, because I can never for the life of me stop analyzing, I have a more large scale outline of my thoughts below. Spoilers for Jeanne’s route:

If we look at Jeanne's life history, he has pretty specific trauma. Most of the harm he endured was a direct result of human rights violations after the war itself. He didn't enjoy fighting and killing people, but he's also very much a man that sees the reality of his position: it's either kill or be killed. His entire goal was to defeat the enemy as efficiently as possible in the hopes of ending conflict, and with his enormous resolve turns the tide. He had no innate interest in inflicting harm, or lack of control when engaging. He isn't pathological about it, and doesn’t dehumanize the other side. He was more "this was an act of necessity, but those are still human beings." So as far as I can tell he has a very strong moral compass and sense of duty, he doesn't show much delusion/confusion in that regard. (Also evident in his conversations with the young orphan boy.) Furthermore, he has been shown to have a sense of humor--cracking jokes with Gilles and boosting morale for his fellow soldiers.

His childhood abandonment is significant (he left his home because he was "not an adequate farmhand and they had no ability to feed all their children") but I don't know if I would consider it a huge trauma point for him. It seems as though he deemed it an act of necessity--not spite. It was simply the way of things, and he couldn't help his wiry constitution. You'd be surprised how common that was once upon a time, tbh... While it's certainly not right or fair, it does appear that in his perception it was the choice he made and he moved on after he became a soldier. Just focusing on what he could do, rather than everything he lacked. For people in his position, they often feel it is useless to linger on what should have been. There’s no time to linger or doubt, life hangs in the balance.

That leaves us with his time under the Inquisition, just before he was slated to be burned alive. I think this is the keystone trauma point for him, because there are a lot of moving parts to his powerlessness here. The first part is that his entire life's mission--ending the war so that people would no longer have to die and/or starve as a result of senseless violence--was just sabotaged. All those years of doing things he never wanted to do (wartime violence) and being forced to leave his family to ensure they didn't all starve, all of it treated like some kind of joke. Like he didn't sacrifice years of his life and sanity to protect a people who were happy to call him a monster and watch him burn alive. The second part is the overt gaslighting and rewriting of Jeanne's personal history (and overall French public perception) for the sake of the King's political agenda. To call him a treasonous danger to the country when he was once lauded a hero. The third portion is the actual physical helplessness of being arrested, starved, and continuously maimed for no reason beyond pure malice. While it's never right to do that to any human being, this was done to a man who prided himself on his stalwart moral code. To abuse and torture him for something egregious that he would never do (at the risk of death) is just another slap in the face to everything he is and believes in.

I just feel like the context clarifies why that period of time would be the tipping point. His entire moral code and life’s work is being called into question and swept aside, as well as his agency? He believes very powerfully in a sense of right vs wrong, what's fair and what isn't fair. Somebody else deciding that for him--and deciding in a way that is openly unfair/incorrect--further makes him lose himself and his sense of reality. A person in that situation begins to doubt if they are good or bad. His belief in god all the more pressing; if he was a good person, why would fate bring him so much suffering? Honorable soldier or not, his blade has drawn so much blood...

People often reference his stilted social skills (and I am of the belief that he is on the autistic spectrum) as a reason why he is so "people-adverse" but tbh? I don't agree. His memories before the onset of this trauma reveal that he was actually a very warm person, and that people were more than willing to fight under his banner. He had friends, and he had comrades--his country loved him. He was the picture of well-meaning civic duty. Just because he doesn’t integrate smoothly into larger social groups or adapt well to socially shifting circumstances, doesn’t mean he just hates people lmao. When people give him the space to exist within his comfort zone and don’t take advantage of him, he thrives. Compounded by that, we also have his actions in the present to further prove what is true and what isn't.

While he is stern with the orphan boy (I'm sorry I can't remember his name, damn it) there is no malice or cruelty in what he has to say. He doesn't punish the kid or do anything out of line. It may not be fair in terms of the adult level of discretion he asks of him, but the kid also didn't have a lot of options realistically speaking lmao. Same thing with MC, she and the orphan boy are nearly identical in how Jeanne treats them. He's a little rough, but the route reveals that his intentions are just a reflection of what he's been through. He truly believes that if a person isn't strong, they won't survive--because his entire life was a series of trying to be strong/reliable because nobody else would. There was nobody to protect him, and nobody to care for him went things went south. It was him and his sword against the world, and even his exceptional skill as a fighter did not protect him from the Inquisition's arbitrary torture. He has lived in a world where good acts can become absolutely meaningless, where following rules and helping people still gets you slaughtered. That's going to take a considerable toll on his mental health: where do you find the will to go on when the next second of your life could mean the devastation of everything that matters to you?

Spoilers: you don't. Or if you do, every minute of the day is a fight to stay alive. That is the point at which we meet Jeanne. Caught in the hellish whirlpool of wanting more, wanting better--but being terrified of the cost. The cost of hoping, only for his entire world to go up in flames again. It's not a small thing, in my view.

If you have any doubts as to whether or not that is the case, I direct you to literally every singular instance in which Jeanne's emotional sensibility goes visibly dark/south. When do these instances happen? When it rains, for one. And when Shakespeare deliberately starts pressing on his sensitivities: about the soldiers he was forced to kill, about the nation that spurned him, how he's truly "wicked" at heart and doesn't deserve to be happy--seconds before flames erupt for the festival. Does that really sound coincidental? I mean lmao. The rain is a painful reminder, but MC transforms that memory into something a little lighter with her bet. He has nothing to lose in her game, all she does is ask for time with him or offers him something if she loses. There's a playfulness there, a restoration of agency and ease that's invaluable to his recovery.

As for Shakespeare's deliberate retraumatization...I can't even begin to explain how damaging that event was. Shakespeare is undermining Jeanne's agency in that he--not unlike the corrupt monarch of Jeanne's era--is twisting Jeanne's beliefs to work against him. He knows full well that Jeanne doesn't feel like he deserves somebody so bright and understanding (we need to remember it's not really a luxury he's had much in life, especially after the war ended). He knows Jeanne has a tendency to impose that strict moral code on himself even more than he does on others. To reaffirm his every worst fear and lurking terror only throws Jeanne into a vicious downspiral. Jeanne doesn't reject MC out of disgust or hate. He rejects her because he literally cannot handle the concept of trying to be happy again, or of burdening her with his constant struggle to move on while he’s in the middle of a bad episode. He knows he won’t be able to stop reliving the past, that every second of his life and breath will be colored by his gruesome memories. He's trying as hard as he can to keep the intrusive thoughts quiet, to move on. But I'm not going to lie to any of you, that is incredibly difficult to do alone.

The next obvious question is, well why can't the other men help him? This isn't to say that they can't--we see how much solace Jeanne finds in Napoleon and Mozart. Even Isaac is gentle with the veteran. But there are limits to how much they can do. Napoleon is struggling with his own wartime trauma, and it's not identical to Jeanne's. Plus there’s a distinct difference in their sensibilities? Napoleon is the type to habitually seek comfort in helping others when he can't help himself, he's not as in tune with answering his own personal feelings and regulating them. (I mean just look at his new ES: he knows what he wants, but it takes a nudge from Isaac for him to go through with it.) He’s very communally reliant in ways Jeanne isn’t; Jeanne is a very private person, and typically prefers one on one from what I can tell.

Mozart is the definition of repression, and if you look at their interactions it's usually Jeanne that's smoothing over Mozart's rough edges. Mozart says as much himself: that he feels like a rotten friend because he knew Jeanne was struggling with a lot of intense trauma, but he didn't know how to unravel it without hurting him in the process. Mozart calls it personal cowardice, but honestly I just feel like they both had too much going on to be able to help each other effectively. (And Jeanne expresses this sentiment too? This idea that he's not angry with Mozart? He knows they're both carrying a lot, he's just touched Mozart cares about him in return.)

Okay, briefly unrelated, but like. Am I the only one that wheezes uncontrollably when Mozart is like "?????? Idk what it is about MC...I don't want her to be scared of me..." in his own main story in the baths. And Jeanne. IS TRYING SO HARD. NOT TO SPILL THE BEANS ABOUT HIM O B V I O U S L Y BEING IN LOVE. THE HILARITY I CAN'T DO THIS. Jeanne was like "yeah....yeah that's rough buddy.......[screams internally, give your boy time Jeanne he's fragile]"

Honestly? That's the thing about Jeanne too--he has incredible self-awareness and hyperarousal-related (I mean the PTSD kind, get your head out of the gutter) awareness to the people around him. He's very, very conscious of the fact that he is surrounded by geniuses when he can't even write his own name. Just because he has the fortitude not to lash out with his insecurities, doesn't mean he never feels stupid or inferior. And it doesn't help when there are people in the mansion who call him--a fucking war veteran from 500 YEARS AGO--nAiVe. He's not naive lmao. He just doesn't know how the world works so many years later, and it's a ridiculously steep learning curve? Leonardo and Comte are nearly 500 years old, but they lived throughout every hour of that time in a linear fashion. It is a big deal to be moved from 1430 to 1890 in the span of a second asynchronously, and then be expected to function without a hitch??? Given the circumstances he adapts well.

That atmosphere--this constant impatience with what he doesn’t understand, his inability to be caught up to speed quickly--is going to hinder his recovery lmao. He feels like a burden most of the time, and agency and freedom are crucial.

Another thing that occurs to me about the mansion's arrangement is that there is a power dynamic, just as any space with people in it has some level of hierarchy (unless you live with miraculously chill people). Jeanne is acutely aware that Comte is the most powerful being in that space, and he is not only hatefully angry at him--but likely afraid too. We have to remember that the biggest betrayal he witnessed in his life was at the hands of a monarch; it was the aristocracy that turned on him and erased the truth. Comte is openly a child that resulted from both that era and that type of lineage, I don't really blame Jeanne for being wary. He intimately knows how willing rich people are to throw normal folks under the bus to suit their ambitions/whims. Comte, while not deliberately threatening, also seems to be painfully aware of this impression he gives off. His "chad persona" as I've mentioned allows him to navigate his life in secret by necessity, but it’s actively damaging to his son. He can't reveal the truth because of Vlad's betrayal, and he's openly unsettled by what it could mean to be honest. Will they wonder about Vlad and find themselves ensnared under his mind control as Charles and Shakespeare are? Will Comte himself be subjected to the mortifying ordeal of being known only to lose them?? That's a risk he isn't willing to take--and that leaves him in a double bind.

What is it that they say, the truth will set you free? This is where MC and Comte come into enormous play when it comes to Jeanne's recovery. One thing to keep in mind is that most of the people in the mansion have their own traumas they're trying to carry, and I feel like a lot of them are unsure how to approach Jeanne. Or if they do, he's very guarded. It takes a lot of consistent effort to get through to him. What does MC do when Jeanne unleashes his harsh worldview on her? She's understandably frightened, but Jeanne isn't malicious (so she chases him around). In fact, he openly avoids and runs away from her--well aware that what he's done is wrong. If anything, he did it on purpose, bringing us right back to Shakespeare's verbal undoing; why does Jeanne attack her in the first place?

LMAO. He attacks her because she essentially says "oh thanks for helping me!" "I am not nice. Watch yourself." "But you seem like a nice guy to me?" "REEEEEE" Does the pattern become a little clearer? When people think kindly of him, his instinct is to shatter that illusion with an impulsive reprehensible act. When people think poorly of him or lash out, what does he do? When that orphan boy starts yelling and screaming, Jeanne is nothing but calm. He explains the situation, and offers the kid a choice, perfectly happy to be the bearer of bad news. This operates on many levels I’m sure, but I have a feeling it has something to do with him being hailed a saint and a war hero only to be tortured and branded a monstrosity (and he probably thinks being a vampire is doubly monstrous). He’s more comfortable being hated because he feels it’s what he deserves in a lot of ways.

Jeanne has a lot of internalized self-hatred because of what he's done, and because of how much harm was inflicted on him outside of his control (he's Catholic and he was tortured, come on this writes itself). If I'm honest, I think that's actually the greater part of why he hates Comte lmao. Comte refuses the very concept of being cruel no matter how much Jeanne lashes out. Sure he lectures him and scolds him, but he never actively limits what's important to him or controls or harms him. Comte fully realizes the tragedy of how Jeanne's life was used by a nation in dire straits, and knows he needs time and acceptance to heal. No matter how dismal or unhappy, Comte doesn't stop--he fully believes Jeanne should have time in his life where he can really live for himself for once. But therein lies the issue, Jeanne doesn't know how to live for himself.

Which brings me to how MC and Comte "heal" Jeanne. I feel like they give him the space he needs to recover, and that's what results in his gentled temperament and happiness. Remember that so much of his main story is MC endlessly chasing after Jeanne. No amounts of his hissing or running or threatening stops her. Even if his refusals are empty of real dislike, they're enough to deter most people. Not MC. She's able to see through to the depths of who he is, and doesn't just use him for her own ends? She actively seeks to teach him (to read and write) to help him settle better in this era, she actively tries to ease his distaste for rain with a well-meaning bet, and she never gives up on him. (Actions mean so much more to him than words in general too, tbh...). Love is more easily defined by work and effort than it is by attraction.

When he has his episode at the festival, sure she's rattled; but that's because she truly believed that he didn't want to be around her anymore. When she notices he really doesn’t want to be followed, she stops like any normal person would. It’s only when she reads his notebook and sees the truth for herself (that he’s given up despite having the same feelings for her) that her determination is rekindled. She doesn't approach him fearfully, doesn't treat him like he's made of glass either. She just wants him as he is--accepts and loves him as he is. Scarred, bloody, exhausted, abrasive, terrified. She doesn't define him by how easy he is to love. That is a huge issue with traumatized people lmao. Because of their maturity, people always just assume they don't need help, or they rely on them to an extent that isn't sustainable. The second they reveal need or that they struggle, people walk away or victim blame them because it’s easier than taking them seriously.

While MC's attempts may be a little more obvious (cherishing his lily field, wearing the hair pin he gave her, careful about his gruesome injury, really listens when he talks about the horrors of his life and accepts that he experienced a level of agony/terror she can never understand, tries to express her feelings no matter his evasion) I think it's also important to consider Comte's large scale effort. I don't say this to undermine MC, I say it because Jeanne's life was defined by a complete lack of security. He left his parents to make their lives easier, he lived in a war that meant life or death any second, and his country's leader branded him a traitor which lead to his endless torture and public execution. Jeanne does not know a life in which safety is the norm. Point blank. He does not understanding going outside and not expecting the worst anymore.

Comte not only understands that level of despair, but treats it with dignity and respect. He fully accepts being hated if it means Jeanne can use that hatred to live on and find a way to heal. And most importantly, when Jeanne begins to move forward with MC and Mozart's help, Comte never once holds it against Jeanne when the truth is revealed. He's not angry, this isn't about reprisal or reparations or revenge. It's just love.

Jeanne doesn't really have a concept of this? His entire life was mostly transactional, defined by strength and efficiency. Nobody gives a damn about your feelings. You either hurl yourself at the problem or die. Nobody is going to help you or carry you or save you. While he may have had a little more support while he was in the military from his fellow soldiers, that support system was ripped away from him during the Inquisition.

One very common sentiment regarding elongated imprisonment and torture is that survival occurs in pairs. It is an undeniable fact that people need others to survive. It is the nature of who we are. Individualism has never proven to be successful, or if it is, its dividends are astronomically minimal when compared to people working together.

What does it mean to be the most reliable, steady person in the room? Usually it just means you don't know how to ask for help when you are no longer capable of maintaining that stance. Napoleon is guilty of it. Leonardo, Comte, and Jeanne all are too. It's part of why MC and Comte's capacity to see what he needs and provide as much as they can is such a big deal. That sort of consistent support (without a constant necessity to beg for help) allows Jeanne to be able to re-integrate into his new reality and find joy. Even if his nightmares and memories never go away, they are now being actively overrun by positive experiences. That's the thing about recovery, really--it tends to be more about drowning out the negative as much as possible and coming to terms with it, than it is about forgetting or never feeling it again. It’s about softening the sharp edges of pain like sea glass.

So is MC magical and randomly got Jeanne to open up? Nah, I don't think so. I think it was a series of persistence and real acceptance of who he is that made him warm up. People really seem to underestimate how deeply affecting understanding is, but that's how damage is undone. Jeanne can't really linger on the idea of his own monstrousness, his unworthiness, a lifetime of misery, when the person in front of him actively listens and cares about him. Makes him laugh and smile and lose himself in warmth for the first time.

If I'm honest, I feel like people also just...underestimate the level of traumatic resurgence that's perpetuated and inflicted by society’s standards in general lmao. This rhetorical structure in which good and bad exist in moral extremes, this idea that people should be able to recover and never experience relapses or periods of sensitivity. The refusal to radically listen to people and their problems, and make active attempts--not matter how small--to mend/ease those hurt feelings. Granted there will always be people in the world who do not want to improve, but I feel like most people want to. It's hopelessness, silence, and stigmatization that remain the true enemies of traumatized/mentally ill people everywhere. And among that population are always war veterans...

[innovativestruggles]

SouGou theories, thoughts and speculations based on canonical evidence

Alright, I know I am so epically late to the party just like I was with Haikyuu and TsukiYachi but I am here now and I am so sad that a lot of the SouGou shippers have...disappeared...

Regardless, I still want to put forward my own thoughts and speculations on these two because they have given me brainrot over the past few weeks. 

So much like the earlier post I did with TsukiYachi, this one will be similar, except I am basing everything on the anime as I have not read the light novel (tbh light novels aren’t really my thing so...). Just to reiterate, when I make any speculations and theories, they are always based on canonical evidence, and of course my own interpretation. I put forward solid evidence so people can see where I am coming from and what I am yapping on about. People are free to draw their own conclusions of what they see in canon, so just because I have a theory with evidence, it does not invalidate another person’s theory of the same evidence...if that makes sense?

Every time I watch a new anime, I always come in with a very neutral mindset. I have a fascination with relationships (hence my ship heavy blog) so I ship characters based on their level of chemistry and compatibility.

Because I am so fashionably late to the party, a lot of the speculations below have been discussed by other SouGou fans. Essentially when I read some of their posts, they pretty much validated what I saw. So I want to credit all those SouGou stans who did the hard yard first on their speculations of these two. This post may already have what was speculated, but it’s nice to have it all in one big post. I will of course add my own thoughts and interpretations as well. So, happy reading!

WARNING: THIS IS A VERY LONG POST

Gou’s Relationship with Other Characters

Sousuke did not make his debut until Season 2, so for all of Season 1, the focus was on Gou and the other characters. To be honest, nothing stood out to me in terms of shipping potential with Gou in Season 1. I do not go into watching anime with the intention of shipping characters - the shipping just automatically occurs when two characters have good chemistry. So with Gou in Season 1, all I saw was a manager being incredibly supportive, friendly, strong willed and determined to see her friends through the swimming club. You may have read my other post on Free! and toxic masculinity, but I did mention in there that what I loved most about Free! was the friendship and the emotional vulnerability. Because Gou is a side character, we never get to see too much of her and how she would develop as a character outside her obsession with muscles. But as viewers, we get the gist of her sweet personality.

Kyoto Animation

Before I dive into the speculations, I want to point out something with KyoAni. For starters, this studio is known for its amazing adaptational works of manga and light novels. When it comes to anime that does not purely focus on romance, they are so so so good with romantic undertones. As much as I do enjoy romance anime, I enjoy ones with subtle undertones of romance even more. I have watched a large portion of anime from KyoAni and I can definitely come to the above conclusion. Although Free! is not a romance genre, there is very subtle light teasing of potential developments between certain characters. Like I mentioned in my Free! post on toxic masculinity, I will disregard that just because the male characters are hugging, crying and showing vulnerable emotions to each other, it does not necessarily mean that there is a romantic development. The very subtle undertones of romance I could see is mostly between Gou, Sousuke and Momo (I will explain more later). So what I am trying to point out in this paragraph is that Free! does have minute traces of romance, because based on what other anime KyoAni produced, there are similarities in how they portray romantic undertones.

SouGou Initial Meeting

The initial meeting did not particularly stand out to me until I watched more scenes and interactions between SouGou later on in the series. What I noticed was the level of admiration Gou has for Sousuke. Again, this was not apparent when I watched the initial meeting scene on its own. I had to see a culmination of scenes between them to realise.

Oh gosh just look at how happy she is seeing Sousuke. If you go back and watch this scene again, she legit just shoved Momo out the way and ran to Sousuke. Lmao poor Momo!

Also....

Momo still staring at SouGou the whole time...

Momo getting pissy lololol (and super jelly)

Gou just looking so happy staring after Sousuke...ughh my heart....

Middle School

Just something I picked up. When Rin transferred to Iwatobi during middle school, it sounded like Gou did not go with him. So she stayed behind in the same middle school together with Sousuke after Rin left. See below.

Because Gou is one year younger than Sousuke, the scene above just sounded like he stopped talking to her when he left for Tokyo when he was a first year high school student and she a third year middle school student...and then the below scene confirmed when and the reason...

In the above scene, Sousuke explained that he hurt his shoulder in the summer of his first year of high school, and then he heard from Gou that Rin was visiting Japan at the time, so I am guessing SouGou must have stopped talking to each other around that time when Sousuke injured his shoulder. The injury was most likely why he stopped talking to her because he knew the consequences...that if Rin found out through Gou... then yeah... so to him it was better to cut off contact with both siblings...omg my heart...my poor baby Sousuke...

Anyways, point is they were definitely still talking when Rin went to Iwatobi and then later Australia. So I wonder how close they were to each other...? They do sound very close...wonder if they walked to and from school together...omfg my heart hurts again...aaaahhhhhhh

Childhood Friends

This trope is so cute and I really like the whole ‘he is my brother’s best friend’ kind of thing. Because we all know how overprotective Rin is of Gou and if there is anyone who is good enough for her, Rin would definitely think it be Sousuke.

LOOK AT HOW PRECIOUS THEY ARE OMG. Love this official artwork of all three of them. And Sousuke has such a sweet gentle expression when he is looking at Gou...

Best part also is that subtle teasing of these two. Anime is always about camera work and specific panels as well, so it just looked like to me that they really wanted to emphasise this scene between SouGou. The snow, the Christmas tree, the childhood friends - all in one frame.

Indirect Moments

These are the moments that started me on the SouGou ship! 

Gou sees Sousuke at the train station right after he has been brooding about his shoulder injury

Gou sees Sousuke at the hospital

What I really really liked about these scenes is that every single time Sousuke was having a down moment, or a vulnerable moment in relation to his shoulder injury, Gou happened to be there and witness it. It may be coincidental that she always happen to be in a place and time when Sousuke wasn’t feeling great. I was initially wondering why she never approached him in the moment and then you look at Sousuke’s pissy face and that’s probably why lmao. Regardless, Gou probably knew his state of mind, and hence decided to leave him to it. The look she gave him was more out of curiosity rather than concern but because the anime never went into detail about what she was thinking at the time, it’s hard to tell. Most important thing is that Gou was there during his vulnerable moments, before anyone knew of his shoulder injury...

Jelly Momo

Ngl, I absolutely love Momo, not only because he’s a hilarious character but because Sousuke always unintentionally cockblocks him when it comes to Gou. I just find it so funny. The poor thing. And Gou just has absolutely zero interest in him....

The thing is, Momo knows that Sousuke constantly gets in the way...it has happened several times already and I think he is also beginning to realise that Gou is probably quite fond of Sousuke, hence his very vocal comment about paying attention to him. i just love it how the anime framed it like this because you know it’s a running gag going on between all three.

Also, the look on Sousuke’s face in that above scene...you can’t see it but if you go back and watch it, and it’s only a split second when Momo moves his head, it’s absolutely hilarious. He legit has a “wtf” look on his face 😂

Just going to put this above scene here where Momo gets dragged away. Poor thing. I think at this point, Gou is catching on to something with Sousuke...

After Momo bombarded Gou with his hilarious hobbies, these two just ended up alone together ❤️

Season 3′s ending credits depict a lot of parallels between characters as well as some level of competitiveness between them. So maybe it is just a coincidence here but Sousuke and Momo together probably continues to depict the hilarious running gag between them and Gou. LOL!

Gou’s Concern

No really, when Sousuke walked out and decided to swim with his shoulder injury, the concerned look on Gou’s face. This was the first time in the whole entire series (season 3 included) where Gou showed this much concern...my heart. 

When there are problems in the Iwatobi swim club related to a character, a lot of the issues and concerns revolved around the other characters helping each other (Gou would be excluded). She is just a supporting character that does not get a lot screen time. Aside from her managerial duties, we don’t see too much of her during important/significant moments for a main character - unless she is interacting with Rin in some way. So her very minimal “interactions” with Sousuke during his vulnerable moments are considered somewhat significant (even if she just saw him walking by) because they are more symbolic than anything.

Off Screen Interactions

Okay, the amount of times Sousuke talked about Gou...they clearly talk a lot off screen and whether that be through text messages, phone calls or meeting up, I believe they are a combo of all three. I have several reasons to believe that they do hang out together quite a bit. 

1. The amount of times Gou keeps bumping into Sousuke randomly (ngl the times the audience sees is probably only a fraction to what actually goes on behind the scenes) 

2. In the later episodes, they have been seen walking home together. 

3. Some of the things Sousuke said to Rin about Gou would warrant more of a face to face conversation rather than something through text message. I mean unless they talk on the phone (that would be so fucking adorable aaaaahhhhhh) 

4. In the CD drama, they have been shown to hang out just the two of them over mediocre stuff so I am sure that would have met up and talked more about other more deeper things with each other

Gou obviously confided in Sousuke how lonely she felt because her older bro was neglecting her

LOOK AT THE AMOUNT OF TIMES HE TALKED ABOUT HER! That obviously indicated they do interact quite some bit off screen. Judging from the things they talked about, it sounded like she was filling him in with what’s going on in her life..and you know just every day stuff... I love it! They are so casual and so comfy with each other <33333333

Platinum Abs

Not counting the fact that I almost choked on my drink when I saw this for the first time, but I was curious to see what Gou thought of them. So I waited....and waited...and waited...and it never came, despite the fact that she was in his presence multiple times when he was looking like this....

And I came across several older posts that pointed this out and it totally validated what I felt as well. Gou, the muscle obsessive freak has not spoken a word about Sousuke’s nationally ranked swimmer’s perfect body. WILL YOU JUST LOOK AT THEM? HE’S FUCKING MASSIVE!! Like..all over....holy shit just look at those guns...like damn fine man.... anyways... so Gou, why have we not heard a single word from you about them? To her, they are probably the best of all the characters in the series ...

And my guess is... Sousuke is most likely special to her. She does not see him as merely an object of muscles (much like she does with the other characters including her own bro) but something more. And whether that is consciously or unconsciously, the outcome is still the same. Because when someone means a lot to you and if you like someone in that way, you are less likely to see them as an object of some fantasy...

The OVA

Yo not gonna leave this one out and if there is anything that really pushed this ship further, it was definitely the OVA.

Sousuke is so pedantic about what people call him (unless you are Nagisa...which he has almost no words for ...). So the only one who can add “kun” to his name is Gou <333333

I’m not going to delve too deeply into this as

1. It is self explanatory

2. A lot of people have already discussed this topic

But, overprotective Sousuke being a sweet guy and lending Gou his jacket is something out of a shojo manga. Even more shojo is that he;

1. Did it himself and not just giving the jacket to her

2. Got overly pissed off at Ai for drenching Gou

3. COULDN’T LOOK AT GOU WHEN HE GAVE HER THE JACKET....like the whole time....ksfklafkhgdshgjdsh

Sousuke isn’t very good with expressing himself, so this scene, out of his own sheer awkwardness, really played into the intimate nature of this potential ship. I’ll explain more later...

P. S. LOOK AT HOW ENORMOUS THE JACKET LOOKS ON GOU...she so schmol (and Sousuke is just massive...). Legit they look like a couple on a date...

Sunset Meeting

Ngl when I first started watching Season 3, this scene came out so unexpectedly I had to replay it just so it would process in my mind that it happened. But aside from the fact that it was framed in a shojo manga kinda way i.e. Gou running towards Sousuke, then walking together in the sunset and then talking about deep and meaningful stuff...you get the drift...I absolutely loved it how Gou was the very first person Sousuke told about his surgery’s success. Omg..swimming and the success of the surgery just meant so much to him and he was already telling Gou about it...

Everything about the particular scene was so so intimate. The scenery, the conversation, the tone of voice, the colours used......everything! Just look at how happy Gou is....

And damn they walked home together ... my heart cannot take it anymore aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh

Running Gag

I did notice this trend going on but it didn’t cross my mind until I read a post that it was like a thing between SouGou. Honestly it is so so cute! Gou has this excited pitched, giggle-ish, admiration-like tone every single time she calls out and runs to him. It’s so sweet. You actually never hear it ever when she talks or calls out to any other characters in the series, so Sousuke is indeed very special to her <3

Also...something about Sousuke walking alone and Gou either noticing him or running to him...

Gou and Momo’s Mistaken Date vs. Gou and Sousuke’s Mistaken Date

In Part 4 of the Free Take Your Marks movie, Rin walks by a burger shop and noticed Momo and Gou sitting together and having lunch. He mistakenly thought they were going out on a date, and before the rest of the Iwatobi team could come to the table after order their food, Rin gets a call from Sousuke telling him that he cannot find his way. So Rin dashes off to save Sousuke still with the misunderstanding. The episode is absolutely hilarious on Rin’s part.

Then in the CD drama, there is a story titled “Sousuke and Gou’s secret date.” Of course it is a case of ‘mistaken identity’ but as I stated earlier, these two would hang out with each other to discuss superficial things, so I am certain that they do hang out with each other on occasions to talk about other more deep and meaningful things as well. Considering the things Sousuke has been telling Rin about Gou, you can make an educated guess that SouGou do have their alone times quite a bit off screen.

Anyways, so this is the part where I believe Free has its subtle romantic undertones. I mentioned in my toxic masculinity post that when the male characters were being vulnerable, hugged or cried, that it does not necessarily mean they are gay, or that there would be any romantic development between the characters. You could say the same with SouGou as well, however, the difference lies in how the anime framed it, and the biggest tip that pushed from just a friendship kind of thing to a teasing of a potential romantic thing is the “secret date” part and the running gag between Gou, Sousuke and Momo. We know Momo clearly has romantic interest in Gou, and the interesting thing is...Sousuke being placed in between Gou and Momo numerous times throughout the anime to signify that there is a potential triangle going on. Does this make sense? It is the nuances as a viewer that you can pick up, and it is even more so if you can understand Japanese. I sometimes switch the subtitles off and really just watch what they say and it’s a completely different view. Hard to explain...but that is the vibe I get.

Extras

I just had to put this scene in. JUST LOOK AT GOU LOOKING AT SOUSUKE OMG. She totally loves him <3 YOU CAN’T TELL ME OTHERWISE!!!

I always love me some official artwork of these two, and disregarding the fact that there are four other guys around and Nagisa just being the little helper he is, SouGou wrestling is something I just need to have in my life <3 I just love the light subtle tease between these two. Thank you KyoAni! And them holding hands... I’m ded...

Sousuke’s Feelings

This is purely interpretation based on what I have seen so far and of course when I am writing a full post like this about SouGou, it does help piece the puzzle together a little more. Tbvh, I strongly believe that Sousuke has repressed feelings for Gou. My reasoning is quite complex. Sousuke is a bit of a difficult character. He is aloof, serious and can be standoffish. He is not good with expressing his emotions and feelings, yet he does questionable things if he thinks it is for the best for those he cares about. Obviously noticeable when he lied to Rin about his shoulder injury, and of course completely stopped talking to Rin and Gou after being injured. But he deeply cares for those around him, and will go out of his way to help, even if it is to the detriment of his own welfare. 

Sosuke hanging out with Gou and talking to her and being around her is already an aspect of his kindness, that he would do this to anyone he cares about. But what I meant about repressed feelings for Gou was more evident in the OVA, and I think that is where the slight nuances come into play. Sousuke is overprotective of Gou and he most likely sees her as a little sister, considering he grew up with her alongside his best friend. But I think when it comes down to more intimate moments i.e. giving Gou his jacket and just not being able to look at her, I think that small nuance does give a small insight into Sousuke’s feelings for Gou. It may be minute but it’s there, and the way the anime framed that scene, it evoked a host of response from the viewers. That in itself is enough for viewers to make a determination as to what Sousuke might be feeling towards Gou at the time ... and it was probably more than a platonic kind of way...

Just to let you know that Sousuke most likely would not act on these feelings because of who he is as a person. And if there is any possibility that things could go awry between him and Rin that concerns Gou, Sousuke would not put their friendship in jeopardy. So if there was ever a way that Sousuke’s repressed feelings for Gou could surface, it would be if Gou initiates.

Gou’s Feelings

If you read through this entire damn thesis so far I think you could see that Gou’s feelings for Sousuke is a lot more overt. She is so incredibly fond of Sousuke and it is just the way she behaves around him, speaks to him and looks at him. It sends a different vibe comparatively to when she interacts with any of the other male characters. Because Gou is a side character, as viewers we don’t get to see much of her, her development or her thoughts and feelings, especially in relation to Sousuke. 

Concluding Thoughts

What an incredibly long post. I didn’t realise how long it was until I scrolled back up. But really, this was so fun to write. I enjoy writing about side characters and the little hints that anime and manga give us as viewers. This is the best thing about storytelling, that is so much more than what you see before you.

The great thing about SouGou is the incredibly compatibility they have with each other. They have a lot of the common tropes found in anime that sets them up for a future pairing. I mean,, Free is not a romance genre so there wouldn’t be any emphasis placed on how one character feels about another in a romantic sense. So the anime has placed some gentle teasing in the background with its frame (usually what you see in shojo manga for example), official artworks, and CD dramas. It’s a very subtle undertone that the viewers would have to dig through and pick up out of the mass of fanservice and the storylines of the main characters. Yet this is the reason why I love KyoAni because of its numerous layers of stories and undertone!

In my opinion, if there was ever any pairing that comes out of Free, it would definitely be SouGou - it’s because the way the anime (and probably the light novel as well) set them up and emphasised on important aspects of their relationship without going into detail about it.

I gotta say, the reason why I love these two so much is because they remind me so much of TsukiYachi pairing from Haikyuu. There are parallels between the characters and I think I just enjoy shipping ones with that level of complexity and compatibility - the whole opposites attract kinda thing (and the height difference).

So what do you think? Are there any SouGou stans out there left? I’m keen to see what the 2021 Free movie will entail for these two and the potential release of Season 4 (most likely in 2022).

Fingers crossed for some excitement!

Also...I had to crop this <3

[acioo]

anybody who knows anything about me will be able to tell you i spend a bunch of my time ice skating & i’ve never seen a guide on how to write a character that figure skates , so i thought i’d compile some tips & explain things , because my whole childhood i was travelling across the country to spin on ice with nothing on but a leotard & some tights , and now i have nothing but a bunch of tacky costumes and this post to show for it . this is pretty in-depth , about 2.5k words , but if you have any questions about specific aspects or want me to clarify anything , feel free to shoot me an ask . oh & a like  or reblog if you found this helpful would be sweet ! tw : injury, mental illness, eating disorders

most people that wind up as figure skaters started ridiculously young. i was probably six, but at my rink, we train kids as young as four and five. if your character has competed professionally at a state-wide level or up, they most likely started super young and have been professionally trained. figure skating is not a sport that you can do casually, most of the time. ice skating, casually, however, totally different thing. but competitive figure skating, being on a figure skating team, and the like, it’s a lot of effort, time, and discipline. in a lot of families, it’s a tradition to teach your kids to ice skate. at my rink, there’s a lot of people who come from slavic families whose parents signed them up - or athlete parents in gen. so, if your character is SUPER GOOD, they’ve put hundreds of hours of work into it, and have years of practice. it is not something you can pick up in a day, and i’d even say you have to be at it for at least two years before you get good good, and it takes a while to even become comfortable on the ice before you can start to do any kind of trick - THAT is why they start young, so by the time we’re pre-teens, we’re really, really good. the problem happens, famously, at puberty, because your balance gets knocked off, your bones are growing, and you have to basically relearn everything you know.

there are so many different types of figure skating. i specialize in singles, but i’ve done showcase and solo dance ( but both of those skills are more for me to be a well-rounded skater, not for competing ), and would sometimes be put into pairs to help learn skills and work together. you NEED to be in one of these categories for competition because they are what all comps are based upon. singles is, as you think, one single ice skater individually doing their routine. singles will do various dances, jumps, spins, etc. i won't lie, it’s hard, and really, really competitive. singles is the most competitive of all these categories. it’s usually a short program ( jumping, spinning, steps - the easier portion of competition because it’s really just a routine that you need to get down pat so you can boost your score. you will learn to do it in your sleep. ) and then a free skate ( longer than the other, it’s more complicated and difficult ). pair skating is really, really difficult, tbh, and you need a good relationship with whoever you are doing it with because there’s a lot of trust involved. it’s hard to break into pair skating because you need a partner that you’re equal to in skill and you like as a person. you guys spend a lot of time together and you need to get along. you guys need to be equally proficient at ice skating. most pairs get put together when they’re still very young. it’s very difficult to from singles to becoming a pair skater. it’s two skaters and they skate around each other, they lift each other, and move in synchronized patterns. it’s highly technical, like all figure skating, but it is more difficult because you have to keep in mind both your own feet and someone else’s. you do NOT want to bump skates with someone. at best, that is very uncomfortable. at usual/worse, you’re both about to eat shit on ice. in pair skating the partner that lifts needs SO much strength. like, so much. i’ve tried to lift fellow skaters, who are the same weight as me, and it’s near fucking impossible for me. ice skates are HEAVY and skaters have a lot of lower body muscle. we are not light people. for example, once time my team and i were out of practice and just skating around and we started playing around and i did a cartwheel on ice and i fell very hard. wiped tf out. and that’s me, trying to handle my own weight. like singles, it’s a free skate and a short program. pair skating is typically male + female ( what a sad world, i know ), but i encourage every writer to take some suspending of reality. ice dance is, basically, dancing. it’s a lot more performative than other types of skating. it’s done in pairs, but can be performed alone, in a different category called solo dance. in the nicest way possible, singles/pair skaters usually look down a bit on ice dancers because it’s a bit less technical, and doesn’t have any jumps of lifts. but ! that doesn’t mean it’s easy because it’s not. it’s rooted in ballroom dancing and they have two parts of competition: rhythm dance and free dance. fun fact: pair ice dancers scott moir and tessa virtue, who are famous to be suspected dating, are the reason we had a no dating rule at the rink. showcase ice skating is usually for some kind of platform, or in front of a large crowd. i’ve done showcase for investors for our rink. there’s usually costumes involved ( there are costumes for all competitions, but their costumes are more, like, theatre - y ), and props, and acting. it’s actually very fun to watch, but you need acting skill. theatre on ice, however, is just what it sounds like. theatre on ice is popular with children and good for ways to show off an entire team of skaters, because you can have eight to thirty skaters on the ice. they can also compete and they can go international, but they aren’t in the olympics and there aren’t many competitions for them. it’s usually just a fun way to get together with your teammates, bond, and then show off what you did.

so, competitions. super complicated, and as a writer, i suggest really glossing over them, because it’s difficult to get it down completely right. there are nonqualifying and qualifying comps. the difference is that in qualifying competitions, you’re looking to start moving up, basically, so if you qualify in the first one, you go onto the next one, then state eventually, then national, and so on. you start with regionals ( singles ) /  sectionals ( pairs and ice dancers ). then, if you succeed, you go to sectional singles / pairs + ice dance finals. the goal is to get on the national team ( i’ve watched ameatur skaters tell other rinkmates they want to compete in the olympics - it was NOT pretty ), basically. which, let me say this. it is nowhere. near. easy. like, just go into youtube and search “ yuzuru hanyu “ ( gold medal in pyeongchang olympics for mens singles ) and watch ANY of his performances. now he’s the gold medalist, right. he started at four years old. so let’s go smaller. google elsa cheng and watch one of her routines. she’s a member of the us national figure skating team. she’s fifteen. YEAH. not an easy sport. nonqualifying is more laid back and for fun, or trophies. nonqualifying is also a way to practice before you enter into qualifying. competitions are really nerve-racking. it’ll cause stress between you and your rinkmates, because more often than not you’re going against one another. you and your coach will usually spend all the prep season creating your two programs, which you will almost always repeat in every single competition you attend. i have about 20 different routines stored in the back of my head. sometimes my coach would give us exercises of coming up with a routine during a time restraint. my friend junior learned a routine that was on yuri on ice. 

for competitions you arrive, you get ready. you’re almost always wearing some kind of elaborate costume/dress leotard thingy. this is a time to start getting mentally ready, talk to your friends, and do each other’s hair and makeup. costumes are bought way ahead of time, and are usually related to the theme of your routine. you do NOT want a wardrobe malfunction. it’ll mess you up & you’ll lose precious points. your hair will most likely always be back and, more often than not, braided or in a bun. the comp will begin and you have a practice session so that you can get warmed up and ready. it’s not long. you will get the music for your program played one by one, and you rehearse - this is usually to check to make sure your music is right & to get acclimated to the ice then you get off the ice and another group will warm up. your coach can’t be on the ice whatsoever, and has to stay outside the rink. usually, competition order is done by a random draw. one by one, you will do your routine. no one but you can be on the ice. then you go off to the “ kiss and cry “ ( because you’re either about to celebrate or get your ear chewed off by an adult in a tracksuit ) where your score gets announced. then, competition continues. your warmup + when you start is not based on how you placed in the last part of the comp ( usually started with lowest ) and you perform the second routine. then, and this is usually determined by like how serious the competition you're going to, but there are trophies handed out, a podium ceremony is held, or medals or flowers are given out. my coach would always make the team pose together after competitions and go out to eat - lots of coaches hold bonding exercises esp after comps. if we did well, we could skip our 9 am practice. if we did poorly, the team meets up at a local park and runs the three-mile trail, and then they do technical corrections at the rink. after your medal/etc ceremony, you’re done. sometimes the top people will perform, but by that time you’re usually exhausted and want to sleep for a billion years ( or, if you did really well, you want to go eat 15 ihop pancakes and conquer the world ). the competition season is from august to april. this is a BASE of what happens. it’s different at different kinds of competitions and for different categories of skating, but it’s almost always something like this. offseason is for practice, rest, and fun, basically, but if you're a serious skater, by the time you’re hitting july, you’re spending more time at the rink than at home. the most well-known and the hardest competitions to qualify for are the grand prix, europeans ( european championships ), worlds ( world championships ), and the, of course, olympics.

another aspect of almost any professional sport is injury. think about any ice skating routine you’ve seen. there is no protection. you’re wearing a thin sheer leotard. you have basically knives on your feet. it’s VERY easy to get yourself beat up by ice. the ice is very hard and not very forgiving. meaning, if you hit, you hit hard. you usually are putting a lot of force into it, too, because you’re falling. don’t even get me started on the BRUISING. you will look like you have gone thru something, all the time. ice skates, which have to sharpened routinely, are, as you imagine, SHARP AS FUCK. knife shoes. i’ve been recreationally skating, because i work at a rink, and just monitoring the skaters and usually messing around with my rinkmates, and i fell, and i sliced open my thigh. i didn’t need stitches, or anything, but there was blood everywhere. very gross. ( ask abt this answered here ! ) and i wasn’t even doing anything particularly hard. and this has happened before. they WILL cut you. ankle injuries are super common. i’ve seen someone break their ankle feet away from me. i’ve twisted my left ankle five times. as for dislocations, they also happen a lot. when i was twelve, i was at the top of my figure skating career. i was qualifying to competition after competition. during a regular, normal practice, i was doing a jump i had usually aced, and i landed the wrong way and i dislocated my knee and blacked out. it’s a very disgusting injury and extremely, extremely painful. like, a good 50k in hospital bills for the surgery to fix it. i was very good and it was my favorite activity on the planet, but it was so awful that i quit. when i was fourteen, i started skating again, joined my team, etc, etc, but it was very difficult to recover from. and that’s a very common story. most people get injured and they have to stop. i know a girl who got a bunch of concussions, and wasn’t able to skate. i’ve been concussed on the ice. people tear their acls or their hip. we have a sports medic at all figure skating practices and comps. and a lot of injuries, once you hurt something, you will hurt it again because you made it weak. we are all very flexible but overuse will make your bones brittle. there’s also stress fractures and different things you can get from just overworking your muscles. shin splints, tendonitis, jumpers knee, etc. you name an overuse injury, and i’ve had it. i was one so exhausted after practice that i laid down on the ice and cried until my coach ( who i love very dearly ) gave me a bag of skittles and told me to suck it up. that’s not saying my coach is a bitch ( john mulaney vc my coach is a bitch and i like her so much ), that’s to say there is no break, no stopping. you get better, and move on, or you quit.

as-is with basically any competitive sport, if you get serious, you will probably go onto some sort of diet along with it. you want to be eating a lot of nutritional stuff ( granola bars are HOARDED in my locker room & to this day i gag at the sight of protein shakes ), anything with a lot of calcium ( because we do be breaking bones ! ), and iron. i used to eat pasta before comps ( like wayyy before not an hr or anything ) because it gives you ~energy~. you need to be eating a lot because you’re exercising a lot. gatorade is banned by my coach because it's so much sugar. you need to drink so. much. water. we all take a bunch of vitamins. usually will eat chicken / meat in general. but keep in mind, like any sport in which you are cutting things from your diet / eating specific things / etc, it can easily lead to an unhealthy relationship with food. there’s a lot of shitty mindsets you will encounter with coaches and fellow competitors about what weight a figure skater should be, and it's even worse in pair skating ( because of lifts ). when i was eleven, one of my old coaches told me that she hoped i never hit puberty because it’d fuck up my balance & when i did i cried. a fellow competitor once told me she wished she had my “ figure skater “ body ( and at this point of my life, i had very unhealthy eating habits ). another time a group of older kids made fun of how gangly i was while i was in earshot. the amt of times my coach has SCREAMED at ice skaters for making fun of / putting down fellow ice skaters is astronomical. it’s rough. a lot of figure skaters have opened up about how figure skating caused / contributed to their mental illness. it’s very easy to fall into because of how “ perfect “ you need to be. you can look up various figure skaters stories on this: adam rippon, gracie gold, and yulia vyacheslavovna - a very famous one as it was part of the reason her career ended & she was the youngest ever skating gold medalist. and i will say, personally, my unhealthy relationship with food ( that would eventually lead to lots o problems & i still feel the impact of today ) began when i was figure skating. there are other risk factors for mental illness as well because there’s so much focus on winning / losing. more than once, competitions would give me panic attacks because of the great stress.

another thing is MONEY. as fucked up as it is, you need money, or a grant, if you want to get good. you need expensive skates, costumes, travel fees, and more. my pro figure skates, not my casual ones, cost upwards of 300, and that’s low balling it. when i was ten, my parents spent upwards of 10k on figure skating. there are rink fees, there are competition fees, there are coaching fees. it adds up extremely quickly. i know a lot of skaters who stopped competing because it was just too expensive. i work for my rink by teaching classes and monitoring open skates and additional things, but if i added up every single dollar i ever made, it would be nowhere near enough to pay for everything. but the thing is, if you get really good, you can make money off of competitions, but getting there is the hard part. at one point in my life, my parents were paying $100 an hour for my private coach who i was seeing multiple days a week. figure skaters also oftentimes will take additional classes to help. my coach made the entire junior team take ballet one year. i took a ton of gymnastic classes as well to help with skating.

so, who are the kind of people that ARE figure skaters ? what do we act like ? there’s a lot of stereotypes that figure skaters are cold people. that’s not necessarily true. i would say that we are extremely competitive people. i’ve seen rinkmates get into full-blown fights during competitions. one of my best friends, who i met at my rink once i returned from my hiatus, HATED me because she knew i was competition. we are on-edge.  stakes are high and the pressure is on. a lot of us are very perfectionistic because you sort of got to be to get to our level. we can have control issues and we can become easily frustrated if we flop jumps or keep stuttering coming out of a spin. the other stereotype is that we are super delicate little flowers. probably because of the way we have to move. realistically, we’re a tactile bunch of people who would probably wind up hurting someone if we played hockey. ( another stereotype : figure skaters and hockey kids. the closest i’ve gotten to a hockey player is the one time i threatened to quick him in the nads because they came early and insisted we get off the rink. ) we all love skating and have a lot of fun while doing it. it’s dangerous, and that’s part of the thrill. speeding around the rink at extremely high speeds is, honestly, exhilirating. we love our sport and, though we can get on each other's nerves, love our rinkmates. it’s not easy, but it’s our favorite thing to do.

[thelastofgala]

I started The Last of Us, Pt. 2 last night, and here are my first impressions, musings on parallelism, Naturalism, Ellie’s characterization, Joel’s characterization, the “presence” of Riley, gameplay, story development, and more:

***SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT***

Starting with Joel. I always imagined The Last of Us 2 would begin at the end of Joel’s journey, though I will say that I did not expect to pick up so close to the end of the first game. I thought they would start us somewhere COMPLETELY out of context. Like I was prepared for much deeper flashback. In this way, I really felt like I was playing a sequel, which is not a bad thing. I just had no idea how they were going to frame this. The compelling thing about starting with Joel is that it immediately sets up parallels between Joel and Sarah, the character we start with in The Last of Us. There’s no way this was not a pointed decision. Just like it was with Sarah, Joel is our point of reference in a new, strange world. His point of view in this new world is all that we know. We don’t know what the new special world contains, and we don’t know grown-up Ellie at all. Plus, old fans will have missed him. It is a comfort to be Joel, and like a daughter protected by her father, a false and short-lived comfort. We are also now thinking of Joel as, like Sarah, someone who is in danger, whose agency is compromised, who, for whatever reason, is weakened this time around, and who may not survive the story. 

I will say, too, that I really loved that after the 4-years-later cut, Joel is held off-screen. He and Tommy are out on a patrol. They are out there, in danger, and that sort of restraint is really effective. We are ALWAYS looking for Joel, just like we were in the run-up to the release, because he is the only person we truly know in this strange, new world. ND knows and takes advantage of this.

There are many parallels between Joel and Riley. Both Joel and Riley sneak up on Ellie during their first interaction. They’re even wearing similar colors. Both Joel and Riley lied to Ellie in the previous story, and both betrayed her as an act of self-preservation. In Left Behind, Ellie is somewhat chilly toward Riley in the beginning, even as her younger, more optimistic self, just as Ellie is chilly toward Joel in the beginning of The Last of Us 2. Still, you can tell through Ellie’s dialogue with Dina that she and Joel are knitted together—he defended her against the bigoted bartender, and she appreciates this even if she doesn’t outright say it. They share taste in movies and have plans to watch a movie together soon. I haven’t interacted with Joel in the current timeline, but I do know that in Left Behind, Riley has to earn back Ellie’s trust and take measures to reenter her good graces, and that this is a large part of their relationship arc. I also know that, by the time they reconcile, it proves to be too late. The world will not let them have what they want, and nothing is simple. All of these parallels worry me a lot, as Left Behind, while still driven by a strong undercurrent of love (it is a love story, interwoven with Ellie’s desperate search for medical supplies in a bid to save Joel’s life), is a much bleaker, sadder story than The Last of Us, and it has a tragic ending.

Joel's conversation with Tommy feels important. I was very glad to hear Tommy say that he would have made the same choice, in terms of saving Ellie or letting her die for the possibility of a cure. It shows that Tommy is more like Joel than perhaps we knew. Plus, Maria will have taught him something about love and commitment, as the notion of saving the one you love above all else should make more sense to him now that he has foregone the youthful idealism of the Fireflies in order to focus on the practical wisdom of family. As a parent, I understand Joel’s decision to save Ellie at the end of The Last of Us and know I would have done the same. I also understand why Joel lied, even though I think it was the wrong choice. Hearing him confide all of this in Tommy was cathartic. It was also very characteristic of Joel to respond that Ellie “didn’t say nothing otherwise” when Tommy asks if she believed him. In all of his denial, Joel chooses to believe what is conveniently in front of him, even if he knows it’s untrue. Also, I couldn’t tell, but was that a Firefly logo on that guitar he’s shining up? Maybe I hallucinated that. But if it is, I do wonder where he got it.

Ellie’s character is much more deadpan and ruminative in young adulthood. She seems tired, and a little lacking in self-esteem and sort of immediately defeated by what happened during the experience with Joel. When Joel sang, we could see her return to that place, just a glimmer, and her response—that it “didn’t suck”—shows how she still shields her heart with sarcasm, something Dina points out to her later on (“Did I ruin your punchline?”). Joel has been broken down by the events of The Last of Us and now bears his soul to her with his music, unabashed and dedicated to her, and Ellie is now the stoic one, unshakable, sealed inside a heavy, protective armor that seems impossible to pierce. I look forward to getting to know Ellie as a young adult and, ultimately, crying a lot. She is artistic and honest and still a little soft underneath. You can tell by her early interactions with Dina especially that she can still blush, and she can still come undone.

I love the snowball fight lol. I am always so frustrated when these big environment games, like Red Dead 2, Dragon Age, etc., don’t have any kids running around. Why don’t these stories pay attention to kids? Kids exist. They are an important part of almost any open world or quasi open world environment. I love the presence of kids in The Last of Us 2, because the loss of childhood innocence is an important theme for Ellie as a character. It’s also clear we’re trying to set up the edenic innocence of Jackson. It is childhood, in a way, and just like childhood, it will come to inevitable corruption. The scene, too, reminded me of Ellie and Riley on their teen dream adventure, romping through the Halloween store at the mall, trying on masks and talking to the magic eight ball.

I’m really pleased by all the parallels with Left Behind and Ellie’s portion of the journey in The Last of Us. Winter was her season, and that’s where we’re starting now. The horseback riding, the blizzard, and all the blood in the snow bring flashbacks of Ellie hunting on the woods, Ellie alone in the frozen mall, David, and the Lakeside Resort, all of which layer the current moment with a lot of emotional tension for the player.

The opening is, I think, sprawling. I’m having fun but there’s this sense that I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of the story. Like Joel in the first game, Ellie is also big-timing me a little and I feel far away from her. I know this will change soon, and I’ll warm up to her, but for now, like Joel, we’re all being held at arm’s length. I actually like the POV shifts we’ve gotten so far and the multiple POVs is something I predicted a while ago, based on ND’s tendencies in the first game. Ppl are going to give The Last of Us 2 shit for being too cinematic but tbh it sometimes feels more like a playable novel than a traditional video game. We’re on a cable car headed straight into disaster and there’s nothing we can do. In this way the game is using the medium itself to perpetuate its Naturalistic themes. We play and we play, and we fight and we fight, but the environment entertains no interest in our struggle and the outcome will always be the same. There is no free will in The Last of Us.

On that note, the gameplay so far is, I think, pretty fun. I have played a lot of stealth games and am always looking for ways the genre is reinventing itself. Like Sekiro and Tomb Raider, The Last of Us 2 is increasing the verticality of the map with rope climbing and scaling up obstacles (though I do miss using Joel’s immense upper body strength to move those dumpsters around lol). In a stealth game I want creativity and problem solving to be central to the gameplay. I don’t want to be magically handed tools and weapons on a constant basis, to meet every individual need. I want to be forced into resourcefulness, and I don’t want to enter a shoot-out unless I absolutely have to. That said, I’m nearly to the tower checkpoint with Dina, and I’ve only fired my gun twice. The dodge/melee mechanic is neat, but more than anything, having real, actionable help from an AI enables stealth kills even in zones crawling with enemies. On that note, I am playing with a headset, and I’m glad I am, because I find the sounds of the goddam clickers to be all-encompassing this time around and a LOT bigger and scarier than they were in The Last of Us. Holy shit. They’re absolutely terrifying. I can only imagine the horror to come lol.

Now, finally, Abby: I don’t have much to offer on this yet. Abby is not who I thought she’d be. I’ll just say it. Still, the melee battle with her and the runners in the woods was AWESOME. For me, the most fun I’ve had yet, because it was completely different than anything from The Last of Us. Playing her, however, I will say, filled me with foreboding. I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to help her. She seems beyond desperate and while deeply sympathetic, she is a new character and her loyalties are not mine...so far. I could be very wrong, and please don’t correct me if I am, but I get the sense she might be a Firefly, or somehow associated with Marlene, and she is looking for Joel, in vengeance. Her group was small and rogue, and they seemed new to the area. All I know is that ND is creating a moral dilemma here, and as to what will become of this, the jury is still out completely.

One small personal criticism, take it or leave it: I don’t personally love that the kiss with Dina and scene with Joel defending Ellie was kept off-stage in the game and left to the trailer. We could have started at the dance. That would have taught us everything we need to know about Ellie, Dina, Jesse, and Joel and Ellie’s relationship state. This is my only criticism of the story so far. From a writer’s perspective, it’s just inefficient and clumsy to try and cover all that in expositional dialogue, taking into consideration that many casual players will not have seen all the trailers. Even still, it’s not hurting my experience in any way. Just an observation and maybe a bit of personal opinion on the fact that perhaps the choice to reveal so much scene in pre-release trailers might be a great way to build hype but might not be the most efficient choice in telling the actual story. My two cents!

In the end, I’m overall super excited and can’t wait to keep playing. These are just my own personal thoughts, and I’ll be back with more thoughts soon!! PLEASE NO SPOILERS OR SPOILERY SUGGESTIONS IN THE REPLIES!! I am NOT privy to the leaks and I do NOT want to know what’s coming. Thank you!! ^_^ 

[the1nightowl]

Diary post 1/25/20

So right now I’m high as fuck laying in bed listening to a Spotify radio based off landslide by Fleetwood Mac I’m pretty sure. The past few days have been shit to be honest, and I’m not entirely sure why. It’s true that I was sober for those few days but I don’t think that can explain the deep depression that I was put into. It was indescribable tbh I just honestly felt like I couldn’t do anything, like I was better off just sitting in my car turned off after achool feeling how hot it got cause it felt amazing even when I started to sweat. It honestly scared me a lot and I had to go home and break my promise to my friend not to smoke anymore. This was after about staying in my car depressed for about an hour before I was able to force myself to drive home, but even then I didn’t turn on the radio like I usually do and I was aware of these things but I just didn’t care and it was just... it honestly scared me a lot and I know this sounds like a cowardly type post like I’m not really sturggling type thing but idk. It was genuine emptiness or deep sadness I couldn’t tell the difference. I got high and even for about 40 minutes in I didn’t feel much but then it kicked in and I was at least able to relax and not let that deep feeling control me completely. Later though I went to my dads girlfriends house for dinner and as I was eating I brought up the pro life thing my religion teacher made us all watch and how funny it was how awkward a few of us were though I didn’t say it like that I said it like most of us were pro choice and were uncomfortable. Then my dad got mad and started trying to get preachy and I was like oh my god please don’t do this I do not care. Which sounds really shitty to say but that’s just... how it is I guess. But he shut up and his girlfriend kept trying to get him to talk again but I was like nah I don’t wanna hear it. Then he asked me how I would feel if i had been aborted and I was like it would probably have been for the better as I remembered a lot of places In my life where my presence in this world made someone’s life worse, how my mother sacrificed years of her life to me only for me to throw it away over a girl, how I’m nothing but a burden to my father, how many expectations everyone has on me to be the one to succeed because I’m the smartest. I don’t want to succeed to that degree I just want to live and be happy. But everyone expects me to go out and do great things but that’s not what I want I just want to go off and live somewhere and be happy doing something enjoyable that makes me think and be able to go home and play games or read something. I don’t want to live in luxury I don’t feel the need to be the best I know my intelligence I don’t feel the need to prove it to anyone, I pass every single one of my classes with a’s and b’s never bothering to open the books unless it’s in class or for homework, I never studied for a single test and I’ve never failed so long as I bothered to pay attention in class where once again I’ve never taken notes except for math where we genuinely need a copy of the equations. I get 1300’s on the psat’s never bothering to study before hand I don’t need to prove anything to anyone else and I don’t feel the need to go to a big name university I just want to get out of here. I take ap classes so that it can feel even slightly like I’m learning at a normal pace and I like it I feel like I’m an average student in a class even without studying or taking notes and stuff. I’m good at this I don’t need to try hard like everyone wants me to, I don’t want anything big in life. I just want a home that’s mine, a job I love, and maybe a dog and a girlfriend if I find anyone. And that’s not in a superior tone it’s just I get a lot of anxiety when it comes to actually doing things I want to do so I can’t ask a girl out out of fear. This is actually the first time I’m admitting this to myself out loud. I’m a coward and I don’t know why. I remember large parts of my childhood where I was completely empty like this too. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Probably trauma.

I’m not sure what that trauma would be granted but I actually don’t remember large portions of my childhood while I can remember others with some clarity. So maybe, probably, there’s something hurried in there I’m honestly scared of chasing down. Anyways I’m pretty sure we just mixed by the 55 minute mark, or at least my comparative, for the benefits of therapy, which I guess this is. I love psychology but idk about pursuing it as a career largely due to the over saturation of the market that I don’t really want to get into. But other than that I don’t know what I want to do. I’m largely lost to the world and I don’t know where I’m going to go. I’m a junior in highschool and I can’t help but feel like I should at least be thinking about desires or something to do with myself because I have to have a semi answer by the end of the year basically. But I guess I’m not gonna find the answer to all my problems just like that. I do feel like I’m wasting my life a bit but I don’t feel anything better to spend it on. Nothing really interests me and that’s a problem. I genuinely don’t feel interested by anything. There’s just things I have to do and things I want to do because they seem like fun which I guess is an interest but they don’t seem like genuine interests. I feel like I always have a responsibility driving me forward and making me do things but what will I do when large parts of that responsibility is gone. I guess life just feels meaningless mostly. I need something to drive towards but there either doesn’t seem to be any landmarks on the map or I can’t read it somehow. Granted there’s no landmarks when I jump out the car to look around but still. Nothing out there is for me it seems. And I’m not sure if it’s me saying that to myself. I’ve never spoken about the feeling I have of lack of goodwill towards myself. I genuinely don’t think I’m good at anything, I’m not a good person, and I don’t know anything about myself. A bit of a parodox yes but that’s where my mind is. I have no faith in myself I don’t think I’m that great at anything but when I do I feel the need to talk about it too much so my feeling of being an arrogant asshole just increases over my pride. And yet I’m always smiling or being kind or at least trying to. But I don’t know if that’s me or just me asking for attention. I just don’t care about anything I own or that’s mine I guess. I just don’t really care about anything actually I guess. I don’t know my motivations I just am. I don’t feel any motivation I feel obligation. And I fear that if I post this I’ll get a sort of relief from it and want to post it again and again in different ways saying it from every point of view and annoy anyone who looks or just be ignored. See that is a fear that has been with me since the beginning. There are many things I have to get over in my life I think. I just don’t really know where to begin. Or maybe I do and I’m just telling myself I don’t for some stupid self hatred bullshit. Honestly I have no idea. Life is meaningless I suppose. And I don’t remember when I started believing that. It’s been a part of me now, or at least connected tightly long enough to make me scared to leave it behind. I don’t know who I am and I’m not sure if I’ve ever known who I am. I specifically remember saying this when I was like 7 or 8. Or being dramatic and standing out in the rain because it actually genuinely felt good. I don’t know and I’m scared of continuing this thought. I’m scared of pushing beyond this. But that’s just the cowardly part of me talking. Why am I scared. What’s the worst that can happen iF life is meaningless. If I truly believe that why do I fear my actions? There’s no reason for it. I don’t need to be scared. I need to stop looking back. It’s holding me back from being better than I am. I can believe happiness is out there. It’s something worth believing it’s not a stupid Idea. I am good enough to feel good. I do deserve happiness. This isn’t my mind playing tricks on me it’s my depression playing tricks on me.

At the same time thought it doesn’t get all the credit. There are definitely things about myself I can fix. And I’m capable of fixing them. I deserve to be a better person, I’m worthy of love if I can stop hating myself. No one can fix me but me and that means I can fix me. It’s a backward thought but backward thoughts can hold truths never seen from the front. Things aren’t as bad as they seem, when i tell depressing jokes they aren’t jokes so why do I laugh. I need to stop normalizing these thoughts, both to myself and to others. It’s not a normal thing to be depressed it’s a sad thing. I need to get out of this hole I trapped myself in. I dug it and stepped in, so I can’t expect anyone to come along and dig me out but myself. It will be hard to dig out of a 20 foot hole but it will be easier that it was to dig myself into it. Maybe it will be easy maybe it won’t. I don’t need it to be easy I need to get up and work on it. That’s what the problem has been, I don’t get up and try I just feel like it’s not worth trying so I don’t do it. How do I break out of this thinking. No I need to stop asking and start coming up with anaswers. I need to break out of this so I will. I need to stop wasting my time watching YouTube and Netflix, but what else will I spend my time on? I don’t need to study we’ve been over that, I have homework but I don’t want to do that in this state or right now. That is a type of thought that will hold me back if I let it. What should I do though. I have no gas but I could spend all my money on that but then what would I do. I could go hang out with friends but I would feel annoying. But should I? There’s so much I could do right now but I can’t do it right now. Could I just get up right now and go? I could get up and get ready but I don’t really want too. But that’s what I have to do to get better. And I don’t want to do it right now, but this is the most normal and excited I’ve felt in a while. What would we do? No money, not much gas. It’s not warm enough to go to a lake or something obviously haha. I’m not sure if this feeling is due to the high or if I genuinely broke myself out of it but I don’t know it feels like a weight has been mostly lifted off me, but it should be completely gone if I don’t let it in. It needs to stay away so I will force it away. This bad thought isn’t controlling me I give it the power. Making a mistake doesn’t mean I’m useless. This isn’t me trying to preach about something this is genuinely what I’m thinking at the moment. I need to stop looking to see if others are enjoying themselves in order to enjoy something. I can feel things myself, I need to start celebrating my victories again. I need to take pride in my work, and be happy for myself not seek happiness in other people’s happiness. That isn’t a great things that makes a person a saint, any person who’s a saint would have to feel some sort of meaning outside of happiness to make someone else happy. There has to be happiness for happinesses sake before I focus on happiness for others sakes. I always put others before myself seeking happiness from service but I need to find happiness in other ways, service will only get you so far. I need a purpose and my purpose will be to find happiness for myself. Take joy in what I do. Enjoy the things I watch instead of looking for a distraction. I need to care about things not just notice them. I’m allowed to care about things and it’s fucking reccomended I care about things, it doesn’t make me any better to not enjoy things. I’m allowed to enjoy what I like and no one can take them away from me. So you know what fuck everything else I said in this post. Fuck all of it I don’t need to find the why for why I feel this I have to stop letting it take over me. It’s not who I am it’s a disease, something which is holding me back. I need to get back to work. J need to go to track again I need to stop letting myself get dragged back by caution and fear. I don’t care but I do.

I need to stop allowing it to take over who I am. I’m more than the sadness I feel I’m the joy I should be seeking. The things I enjoy aren’t stupid they’re what I enjoy. Enjoying the music in my headphones is important. I tell everyone else what they say is important but how can j believe that if I don’t think what I care about is important. I can care for things others don’t care about it genuinely doesn’t matter. Why do I think it matters??? It’s highschool not life. I don’t like dances so I won’t go to them. I’ll enjoy my video games, i love my music and I’ll enjoy them whether others think I should or not. I don’t need to be productive all the time but the things I do between shouldn’t just be distractions they should be things I enjoy. So yes I’m writing what has basically become an essay but you know what? I’m better that what is at the beginning of it all, but it is a part of me which will go away as I focus on improving my enjoyment kf life. If I enjoy my life again I will find direction. That is the secret. It’s not about distractions it’s about doing things I enjoy. Fuck everything else happiness is work and you have to work at it not give up in the face of difficulty. I’m better than feeling bad about everything I do fuck that I’m worth it I’m happy doing what I want to do. It’s not bad to do that and I’m allowed to say it. Fuck I love playing video games they can be difficult but they make you think and provide a sense of victory and accomplishment which can’t be found anywhere else. Or it can be found anywhere else, I can feel that accomplishment at track. Feeling myself improve is a good thing, worth the pain that comes along with it. The pain isn’t a completely bad thing it’s what proves you’re getting better which isn’t just an excuse people say it’s how it should feel. Pain isn’t to be avoided at all costs. Pain is a good thing sometimes. I am worth something people can be missing out on something if they don’t talk to me fuck that I’m worth something. This has been my diary post for today. Or at least right now but you know what it’s okay either way. I’m gonna go ahead and enjoy something right now. I’m gonna to open all the blinds in the house and let the light shine in.. I’ll make some warm drinks and put on warm clothes and enjoy the light instead of embracing the darkness that I ran towards. Fuck staying in the darkness of my mind anymore I can open the blinds and enjoy the natural light. So I’m gonna go do that. Thank you for making it this far, I’ll post an update or sometjing eventually. But I need to go and put my money where my mouth is. This took me about an hour to write btw. And that’s something to be proud of. So I am.

[insomnia-productions]

for the character ask: rand???

aight keep in mind that I’m only on Book 6 in my reread and my memories of 7-14 are fuzzy

That said Rand is mY SON LET’S DO THIS

Favorite thing about them:

I adore how bookish he is! This has been said before but - naming his horse after Jain Farstrider’s horse? What a nERD—

Also setting up universities and encouraging people to create things (trying to balance out the destruction he causes... I made myself sad)

I also love the little moments where his old self breaks through. Like in TSR when he gives his big long-awaited speech to the Tairen lords, and he pauses to grin boyishly at Mat first. and he does it? for no reason?? just bc?? I love him. Or in LoC whenever Egwene visits and his whole persona transforms from dark and brooding to young and playful. It’s a whiplash for Egwene, but I love it. I love him. He’s my son—

Least favorite thing about them:

Right see I’ve reached that point of “this character is my child” where I just can’t see any fault in him...

That said, Rand, honey, just,,,, tell people things. Like. Tell them stuff. I know he can’t trust anyone - and he’s justified about that (like holy shit Egwene you’ve known him your whole life and you’re gonna choose the Aes Sedai over him?? girl???). But I get tired of seeing people like Egwene, whom he grew up with, think of him as arrogant, and they wouldn’t if he just explained his thinking once in a while.

Favorite line:

“You may call me Rand Sedai.”

This has the same fucking energy as “There’s no need to call me sir, Professor.”

It has the same energy as the “I’m about the end this man’s whole career” gif.

I love it.

BROTP:

Min!! They’re one of the few canon pairings I actually like and I love their friendship. She lets him be more himself and he really needs that.

Also Loial. I wish they had stayed together for longer. Their friendship was really nice, given that they’re both nerds.

OTP:

y’all know i would sell my soul to make cauthor happen

Childhood Friends to Lovers is my favorite ship trope. And this one is great bc if you’re really feeling angsty then you can stretch it across the series as Childhood Friends to Lovers to Strangers to Friends (optional extra to Lovers again if you’re weak for a fluffy ending like I am)

And! They also fit my favorite ship dynamic: two halves of a whole idiot.

NOTP:

Elayne. I just don’t like her.

Random headcanon:

you can pry freckled rand from my cold dead hands

Ooh I have a really big postcanon headcanon - but I’ll share it with you when you finish the series.

Unpopular opinion:

I don’t know what’s popular and unpopular in this fandom but I feel like quite a few people think of Rand as whiny and/or dumb and - I don’t think he is. He makes some pretty significant mistakes, especially in the middle portion of the series, when he’s in the absolute pits of depression and madness - but can you blame him tbh. I just think that, by and large, he’s doing really well for someone in his position.

another Opinion i have is that instead of a harem Rand should’ve had the girls as his Coven of Lesbians. yes this is a hill I’m prepared to die on

Song I associate with them:

Lighting Myself On Fire - Jukebox The Ghost.

There’s this line where the singer’s voice slows and drops and he says, “You can see it in their eyes... they think that they’ll catch fire...” and then the drum does a thing and agh I get chills every time.

Favorite picture of them:

I love the way @glorthelions draws him

[abscencefelt-arch]

i  know  that  being  dash  only  for  now  means  that  people  can’t  as  easily   pop  around  my  blog  to  gain  insight  into  my characterization ,     so  i wanted  to  pop  a  few  factoids  about  my  portrayal  into  a  post

-  charlie  is  demiromantic  asexual .   he  feels  no  sexual  attraction  to  anyone  ever  regardless  of  gender  or  anything  else.    for  a  very  long  time ,     i  played  him  as  aromantic  as  well ,    but  then  he  developed  a  crush  one  one ( 1 )     individual  after  a  lot  of  plotting  and  threading ,     so  i  don’t  think  it’s  fair  to  call  him  aro  anymore .       

-  on  the  above  note ,   yes ,   i  played  charlie  before ------  three  years  ago !   

-   this  is  the  timeline  that  i  have  constructed  and  generally  stick  to  :

1972 - 1984 : his  years  growing  up  at  the  burrow 1984 - 1991 :  his  hogwarts  years  with  a  focus  on  his  fifth  through  seventh  years  during  which  he  was a  prefect  and  gryffindor  team  captain .     1991 - 1994 :   his  years  working  at  the  romanian  dragon  sanctuary  before  the  start  of  the  second  war . 1995 - 1998 :    his  years  working  at  the  romanian  dragon  sanctuary  during  the  second  war ,    which  includes  recruiting  foreign  wizards  during  his  time  off .     he  is  a  part  of  the  order ,    but  is  pretty  disconnected  from  their  general  ongoings . 1998 - 1999 :   the  year  of  reconstruction  of  he  wizarding  world ;    charlie  moves  back  home  to  the  burrow  for  one  year  to  aid  everyone  in  rebuilding  their  lives  2000 -  onwards :   charlie  returns  to  romania  initially  to  resume  work  at  the  sanctuary .     he  is  then  promoted  to  an  international  consultant  and  travels  the  world  aiding  wherever  he  is  needed  working  towards  better  dragon  care  and  preservation .

-   charlie  is  deeply  and  fundamentally  shaped  by  being  raised  during  wartime .    i’ll write  about  it  more  extensively  later ,  but  charlie’s  entire  childhood  was  shaped  by  death .    death  and  loss  were  normalized  for  him  far  too  early .

-    charlie  and  his  hogwarts  quidditch  career  really  were  the  stuff  of  legends .    his  position  was  seeker  and  he  helped  bring  the  team  to  cup  victory  in  just  his  second  year .      he  was  also  captain  and ,    although  they  did  not  win  the  cup  under  his  leadership ,    they   pulled  off  some  fantastic  matches .     upon  graduation ,    he  was  offered  positions  on  the  reserve  teams  of  both  puddlemere  united  and  the  tutshill  tornados ,     but  turned  them  down  in  favor  of   taking  his  position  at  the  dragon   sanctuary .

-    CANON :    charlie  failed  his  apparation  test  on  his  first  try ,    landed  five  miles  south  of  his  destination  on  top  of  an  old  lady .      ME :   charlie  hates  apparating   as  he  hates  few  other  things  in  the  world .     he  doesn’t  see  any  real  appeal  to  it  other  than  speed ,    and  will  rather  fly  somewhere  on  his  broom or  drive  his  muggle  car  rather  than  apparate .

-   charlie  loves  fleur  and  the  fact  that  bill  married  her .       he  lost  respect  for  some  of  the  members  of  his  family  for  being  anything  other  than  extremely  welcoming  to  her .

-    speaking  of  bill -------  charlie  loves  bill  more  than  anyone  else  in  the  world .    he’d  do  anything  bill  needed    without  hesitation .     this  needs its  whole  own  post  tbh .

-    charlie  loves  his  whole  family ,    but  often  grew  up  feeling  like  a  black  sheep .     there  were  always  little  things ------  like  the  way  his  brothers  talked  about  girls  they  had  crushes  on  or  the  way  his  mother  and  father  always  seemed  to  love  the  little  house  that  gave  him  claustrophobia  ------  that  just  made  him  knew  he  was  different .    even  come  the  second  war ,   the  ways  that  he  comes  to  contribute  to  the  order  are  vastly  different ,    and  he  suspects  he  is  judged  by  some  for  not  being  more  involved .

-    charlie  has  really  bad  sensory  processing  problems ,    especially  as  pertains  to  noise  and  textures .   this  plays  into  him  not  liking  confined  spaces ----  lots  of  little  noises  happening  at  the  same  time .    also ,   the  sweaters  his  mom  makes  for  christmas ????    he  has  to  wear  a  shirt  underneath  them  just  to  stop  himself  from  crawling  out  of  his  own  skin .

-  in  terms  of  schooling ------  ya  boy  excelled  at  care  of  magical  creatures ,  obvs .   he  was  also  very  strong  at  charms  and  could  probably  have  become  an  accomplished  duelist  if  he  had  wanted  to  go  that  route .     his  strength  lies  in  how  quick - thinking  he  is  in  terms  of  spellwork ,   as  well  as  the  fact  that  nonverbal  magic  comes  easily  to  him .     he  managed  decently  in  transfiguration  because  of  his ,   but  the  theoretical  portions  bored  him .   he  always  did  decently  in  astronomy ,   dada ,   and  history  of  magic  because  he  liked  listening  to  lectures ,   but  he  rarely  did  the  assigned  homework  to  accompany .    herbology  was  great  because  he  got  to  be  outside .    potions  can  suck  his  dick   (  but  not  really  bc  he’s  ace ,    remember !  )

-  a  big  motif  in  charlie’s  life  is  absence  -----  hence  the  url  of  this  blog .    i've  sort  of  touched  on  it  throughout  this  whole  thing ,   but  having  people  in  his  life  go  missing  and  having  aspects  of  his  personality  differ  from  people  around  him  and  being  physically  separated  from  the  traditional  experiences  of  war .  .  .     charlie  always  feels  like  there’s  this  hole .    maybe  it’s  inside  of  him  or  maybe  he’s  inside  of  it ,    but  it  exists .     there’s  a  void  somewhere -------------------  do  not  get  me  wrong ,    charlie  is  a  happy  and  whole  person ,    but  he  doesn’t  always  feel  like  it .     there  is  an  absence  there  that’s  largely  undefined .    

IDK  THERE’S  PROBABLY  MORE  BUT  I  HOPE  THIS  GIVES  YOU   A   BASELINE !  

[naomialmaz]

A thread of Discourse™ appeared on my dashboard earlier this week about Kylo Ren and his arc in the upcoming movies, and I think I've got some reasons why so many people (including me, tbh) are against seeing a redemption arc for this particular dude:

1. This is mostly a fandom problem, but to be blunt people stan white villains way too much. Not in a “let villains be villainous” kinda way, which I’m always on board with to see how they add to the story/are a foil to the heroes, but in a way where the (white dude, I’ve rarely/never seen it for other villains) villain overshadows the actual heroes and their journey/plot/development in fandom. I could give some examples, but you already have at least two that popped into your head. In franchises with decent amounts of diversity for their heroes this becomes a concern when it feels like large chunks of fans/sometimes the content creators themselves ignore that for the few white characters on screen. In franchises with one or two drops of diversity sprinkled in this is an even bigger problem, and one that can extend past the villain onto white male co-lead. Again, whichever franchises you’re thinking of with this problem, I’m talking about those. 

The worry that a redemption arc for Kylo would take the focus away from Finn, Poe, and to a lesser extent Rey is a legitimate one; this isn’t a show with 13+ episodes, there is only so much time to allot to each character while also moving the plot along. 

2. He had his chance in a big way: this isn't Prince Zuko, y’all, when Kylo killed his dad of his own free will (no Azula was talking in his ear about restoring what he wanted most right before he did that) he turned away a pretty big opportunity to step into the Light. The AtLA equivalent would be if Zuko killed Katara or Aang after they offered the chance of working to stop the Fire Lord (and remember the villains that almost did killed them both: Azula, Ozai, and even Zhou didn’t get redemption arcs; Zuko was a special, specific case). 

Other people with much better phrasing have already explained how he closed himself off to redemption in that moment (parallels to Luke not killing his dad and his dad not killing him, etc. and so on) so I won’t get into it, but contrary to what I keep seeing, I don’t think Star Wars is a story of redemption any more than Avatar is: they both have that as a feature for one (1) specific villain, but there are more shades there than just that one part of the big story (Avatar more so than the SW movies, but that’s just to me and my investment into the show).  

3. It’s boring. Forget a redemption arc, what will Kylo do next, what is ultimately the agenda he’s following? He wants to follow in his granddad's footsteps, what’s he going to do now that their giant Death Star 3.0 star-eating planet/blaster combo is gone? Did he destroy what Jedi culture Luke built back because it’s what Anakin did all those years ago to his Jedi Order? What is the extent of Snoke’s reach into his mind? What was his childhood like, with Snoke speaking/manipulating him? What does he truly want, at the end of the day? What will he do if he rejects the way Vader did things but continues on his own path of villainy, set in his ways and certain that it’s right? 

There are so many questions that could be answered, and none of them need a redemption arc to do it. Hell, he could even kill Snoke and become the ultimate Big Bad, and wouldn’t that be an interesting story twist? 

So what I’m saying with all these words is that fandom’s general treatment of young white villains, the severed ties to redemption present in TFA, and the much more interesting storylines that could be explored instead are some of the reasons, I think, that a large portion of the SW fandom don’t want to see a redemption are for Kylo Ren. I can’t speak for everybody or anybody but myself, but these are the reasons I’m going with. 

[pcurrytravels]

Thoughts: New Orleans (Part I)

New Orleans. A city I’ve been obsessed with ever since I was a child. After six years of trying to go only for one thing or another to get in the way, in May of 2018, it finally happened. As I sat in my window seat, looking down upon the Mississippi River, giving way to the marshy swamps and bayous surrounding Louis Armstrong International Airport, I was beyond ecstatic. I couldn’t believe it. I was really in New Orleans. 

The hot, muggy, humid air did nothing to compromise my excitement as I felt, the moment I walked off that plane, I was already being treated to the culture. Between leaving the airport and arriving in the city, I kept my ears wide-open as they were being treated to a number of accents. From the Southern twang of the sweet, concierge lady, to the Caribbean-esque Creole drawl of the man shining shoes next to the restroom, to the Brooklyn-esque “Yat” accent of the NORTA bus driver, and lastly, the strong Cajun talk of two older men who sat in front of me on the bus. It was so intriguing to hear all of these accents among people who are all natives of the same city; a sign of the cultural gumbo reflected in NOLA. 

Even the bus ride itself was interesting, especially as someone who’s never been in the Southern region of the United States before. Even the suburbs of Jefferson Parish play host to a large amount of creole cottages, shotgun houses and large oak trees covered in Spanish moss, things I am not accustomed to in the Southwest. Sadly, I also saw a good amount of buildings and homes that, a whopping thirteen years later, still looked as if Hurricane Katrina had made landfall only yesterday (I actually felt low-key pissed off at the sight of it tbh). 

After a 45-minute bus ride, we arrived in the Central Business District and walked five blocks or so to our hotel; the Wyndham Garden Baronne Plaza. On a quiet corner that’s almost literally a hop away from Canal Street, it was a decent hotel in a building that was once a location for Sears. Likely, that explains the weirdness of interior rooms with windows that looked out into the hallway. That aside, the rooms were fairly large and roomy.

The Perks: Large rooms that can be had for a good price. Relatively safe and HIGHLY convenient location. On-site coffee shop. Very comfy beds. 

The Drawbacks: Awkward layout with weird, interior rooms (though I’ve been told this is an issue with New Orleans accommodations in general). Slow elevators. Rather sparse use of lighting which caused both the hallways and the rooms to feel a bit dark. 

Anyhow, after settling in and relaxing a little bit, we set off to Canal Street.

Canal Street is like NOLA’s version of Broadway Avenue/Michigan Avenue/Rodeo Drive. Historically a major shopping and theater hub (much of that past momentum has shifted to Uptown, the Garden District and Metairie in more recent times), and so-named because there were plans to turn the street into an actual canal at one point, Canal Street tells quite the story all by itself. The original neutral ground, when Louisiana shifted from being a French colony to an American state, this was the main dividing point between the Creoles of the French Quarter and the Americans who had settled down in what was then known as Faubourg Ste. Marie. Over time Ste. Marie came to be known as the “American Quarter”; it’s now referred to as the Central Business District but even today it’s VERY easy to see the distinction between the two just by looking at the two sides of Canal Street.

It was quite the anomaly to behold; I really did feel like I was standing on the edge of two completely different worlds whenever I was on Canal. I’m not even sure if the pictures or my words could properly convey the sight as it truly is something one must see to believe. The palm trees lining the boulevard did little to hide the Caribbean look and feel of the French Quarter side and the American look and feel of the CBD side. You could see it in the architecture, the naming conventions, the color schemes, right on down to even the street signs. You see, at each block on Canal, the street has two names: a French/Creole one for the French Quarter and an English/Anglicized one for the CBD. 

Beyond that history, it’s actually pretty fun to just take a stroll and look around the wide boulevard. At one point it was a hub of luxury shopping akin to Rodeo Drive, in addition to having a thriving theater district. Currently, the Canal Place shops and the Saenger, Orpheum and Joy theaters are the only remaining vestiges of this glamorous past, but there’s still some great shopping to be had beyond the tacky souvenir shops (and even those are worth browsing; you’d be surprised at what you could find inside some of them).

Another thing of note is the wealth of vintage signage present. Many of the hotels on Canal and throughout the older parts of New Orleans in general make use of several once-separate buildings that have been conjoined; the building which used to house the Kress five-and-dime is now a portion of the Ritz-Carlton. How do I know this, you ask? Because the old Kress signage still remains! Of course that’s to say nothing of the vintage Walgreens marquee or the stylish, mid-century sign on The Sanlin building.

As we neared Tchoupitoulas, we were treated to a reminder of home: Harrah’s casino. They’re a chain, apparently. The two of us decided to step inside just for s***s and giggles, but the experience was much different than we expected. In a lot of ways, it called back to Vegas in an older era. There was actually a bouncer at the door who checked ID’s; something that hasn’t been in wide use since the early 1980s. In a lot of ways, it also felt more like the Vegas of my childhood. In this modern era, all of the casinos feel so bland, ascetic, monotone and pretentious; Harrah’s New Orleans on the other hand felt vibrant, colorful and unique, with a theme that paid homage to numerous elements of New Orleans culture. Interesting how a casino in New Orleans does a better job at feeling like Vegas than casinos in Vegas do these days.

After we left there, we then took a look around the Central Business District. Now, I’m going to be frank with you all; from an aesthetic standpoint, the CBD isn’t that interesting. As I said in the mini-guide, it’s like the downtown of any other American city with skyscrapers and office buildings. However, there is some uniqueness if you look beneath surface level. In front of nearly every bar in the area, you will see people standing outside with plastic cups of beer and/or cocktails in hand; an indicator of very relaxed open-container laws (even more relaxed than Vegas, believe it or not). And even then, some unique architecture can still be found; many of the buildings here have a more Victorian and/or Greek Revival look, thanks to most of it having been built in the early/mid-19th century. Once we crossed Podyras at the intersection of Baronne, we stopped by Rouses Market.

Rouses Market is a lot like Whole Foods…………..aside from the fact that it’s WAY cheaper. I honestly wanted to take the store back home with me. Like an indoor market, it had a number of high quality items to choose from. Their fried chicken, salad bar and bakery items in particular were all fantastic. That goes to say nothing of the wide ranging selection of spices, hot sauce and craft beer that was available. And to think this is one of the main grocery stores in the New Orleans metropolitan area? Yeah, I’m very jealous of you guys.

Here’s where things get boring. After we did our little bit of grocery shopping, we went back to the hotel, ate our food, and went to sleep. And yes, I’m still kicking myself for effectively wasting one of my days in New Orleans.

The next day is when the trip really began. Stay tuned.

[itneverboresme]

and we’re back to our regularly scheduled shitposting~

i’m back to posting on here, bc its not like anyone reads these anymore and its so hard for me to find the motivation to physically write things (tho i should put more effort into that and get disciplined)

(also i need to start doing emotional check ins regularly again ;_;)

this is will just be a large ass word vomit of my thoughts and emotions (bc ive been having a lot of those lately), and will be placed under a read more

~apologies for v poor grammar and syntax~

I am an insecure individual, and am prone to overthinking and irrational thoughts. This has always just been part of my personality and it’s been something I’ve just accepted for what it is. This level of insecurity, self-deprecating thoughts, and subsequent self-destructive behaviors has always been greater than an annoyance, but ultimately manageable. Growing up in an environment that was a mix of mostly white people and Vietnamese, i have always felt like an outsider. Within the fil-am/filipin@ culture the standards of beauty have always been distinctly white/east asian (if we are being super technical i am aware that vietnam is southeast asian, just like the philippines, but at least in my neck of the woods most viet girls looked more like your typical east asian girl). I never felt pretty enough, because I never got attention from boys and I didn’t look white or like the “pretty asian girls.” I don’t even look like your typical pretty filipina, so i’m not even pretty for my race (ugh that’s so shitty typing it out like that ;_;) So growing up I always had this complex with my appearance, and i strongly correlated the amount of positive attention I received from guys with my self worth. (again this is so shitty seeing it typed out like this ;_;) 

Coming into college I had gotten a little better about this. Unfortunately it wasn’t because i learned to love myself for who i am, but rather because I was on the receiving end of a lot of positive attention due to my dancing and to a lesser extent, my looks. There was always those nagging feelings of insecurity because I didn’t look like those “pretty asian girls.” but for the most part it was just twinges of feeling a lil crappy, and then going on with my day. This year has gotten harder because now I have to contend with my insecurities in the context of a relationship. Two of the previous girls the boyf has been involved in are your stereotypical “pretty asian girls.” One of the girls was even a major source of insecurities well before I knew they had a past together. That was a major bump in the early stages of our relationship, but for the most part we were able to settle that issue. More recently, the boyf and i went through a pretty rough, rough patch. I’m not going to go into details. because while no one may read this, the finer details of issues in my relationship should stay within the relationship. But I will say that the circumstances of this rough patch destroyed what little self-esteem I had. And i’m trying to learn to let go and be okay with it, but it’s so fucking hard. i’ve never felt like i’ve been good enough for anyone, and when this happened it just reinforced all of those doubts and insecurities.   Additionally I’ve always considered myself to be a solitary person. I never really had ~best friends~ or a solid squad, though I’ve always wanted relationships like that. I spent a good portion of my childhood alone, and I had pretty strict parents so I could never really go out much. I think both of these factors heavily influenced how now I’m just used to being by myself. This hasn’t stopped me from wanting that strong group of friends that you just know you can always count on or hang out with or whatever. This year I have felt this lack of solid friendship group the strongest. Sometimes I feel like I don’t really have friends. Obviously this isn’t true, but that’s just the way it feels sometimes? Within ascn I don’t have anyone to goof off with during practice, other than the boyf, but i mean i can’t spend all my time with him. that shit’s just plain unhealthy yo. In many ways i feel like an outsider in my own team. Everyone has gotten so close with others and then i’m just there? It’s not that i don’t feel the family vibes; it’s more that i feel more like an afterthought. It’s gotten to the point where I question whether or not I want to return to the team next year, but at the same time all my friends are on this team. Outside of ascn I don’t really have anyone. There are a lot of other people in the dance community that i’m friendly with, but I would hesitate to say that we are anything more than acquaintances. And I’ve pretty much been abandoned by my kuya, and i’m not super close with the rest of my kp fam either. 

Both of these things have been contributing to my rapidly declining mental state. Recently the frequency and severity of these mini episodes has been increasing. (tbh its gotten pretty freaking bad lately: high school levels of bad) It has been getting harder and harder to keep my emotions in check until I get to the safety of a solitary place. Case in point, at last practice I just started crying a lil more than half way through the damn thing, because i felt so lonely. I have spent the last couple of weeks feeling lost and confused and in this haze, and i want to get better, do better, and be better. I just don’t know where to start.