#tldr i love wataru and he makes me a better person

[masquedfreak]

it used to be considered weird and "invalid" to gush about your kins as characters if you were in an anti-recovery corner of the internet (which i was), so i always felt like i had to come from an angle of leaning into their darkness or flaws to be able to explain why i cared for them. this didn't always happen, of course- a lot of my very favorite characters are also me. i'm my own biggest fan except in the ways that would be most beneficial to my life currently, but having this as an outlet has gotten me closer to self-acceptance and even self-love than anything else i've tried.

i might not love myself very much but i love wataru, and at the end of the day beyond our surface level differences, i clearly see myself in him. when we first met i was terrified- i felt an instant pull i spent several weeks trying to avoid. i couldn't stand him for weeks after- i magnified issues i knew i was willfully misinterpreting to justify why he wasn't purely an aesthetic or aspirational kin. my friends at the time were extremely rude about it so i felt like i had to make his flaws a lot worse for anyone to take me seriously. very silly in retrospect but kin shit was all we talked about, it was my entire life, so their judgment felt like the end of the world.

i'm nothing like him socially, i have an interest in everything he does but i'm certainly not good at or even remotely capable of most of it. tfw the loser with no natural talent and an Insane inferiority complex kins the person who is so cool and good at things it literally alienates him, which in turn causes years-long resentment, complete with an endless guilt spiral about being just as bad as everyone else and unworthy of seeing themself in him... anyway.

i was even terrified of birds when i first met him. and flying. and basically it looked ridiculous and like i was just using him as an excuse to icon eiwata ship art. obviously, it's a whole hell of a lot deeper than that and i understand wataru better than.... pretty much any character, even if i can't write all sides of him like i can some others. i'm rarely this confident about knowing someone inside and out but yeah.

he's a really beautiful character if you take a few moments to actually pay attention. he's taught me a lot about myself, things i desperately needed to learn. i love his motivations, his relationships, his... everything. he is aspirational, but he's also just... me. most importantly, he's me in ways that i truly struggle to see in myself.

anyway, i guess the point i'm trying to make is that wataru has made my life far better. indescribably so, really. i half wish i could go into some of it but that's a lot and i'd regret it immediately, but suffice it to say i either would not be here without him or i would be a hell of a lot worse off. it's only fitting that he'd have such an effect on me, even if he is me. though... i guess it's precisely because he is. if anyone could get it, y'know? i'm so fucking glad i met him.