FIVE THINGS.
A meme from aflyingteapot!
Comment to this post asking for a list, and I will give you five things I associate with you. They might make sense or they might be totally random. Then post that list, with your commentary, to your LJ (or just add a reply back at me). Other people (including me~) can get lists from you, and the meme merrily perpetuates itself.
1. HARUNA (LOL so predictable! LOL I know you'd write a series of books on this XD Fanfics!Haruna doesn't count!!)
Well, as many of my fellow Oofuri friends know, I first got into this fandom shipping Mihashi/Abe, and Abe was my total favorite, whereas Haruna... wasn't really much on my radar at all. I never hated him though! I know a lot of people start off disliking him because of everything that he did to Abe, but from the start I've always thought of Abe as biased. Not that I thought Abe was lying... he is a pretty reliable narrator about the past, I think. But I think that when it comes to appportioning blame, he was always way too quick to blame Haruna, so much so that I figured that at least part of that was some unexplored guilt of his, for whatever things he'd done that secretly made him feel like he had let Haruna down.
So, because I loved Abe so damned much, I decided to investigate what it was that he could secretly be so guilty about... the reasons he won't even admit to himself about how he let Haruna down.
I mean, it's too easy to say it was just because it took him so long to be able to catch Haruna's pitches, right? For one thing, his feelings about that are not at all a secret. And I have a hard time seeing the shame in having difficulties catching pitches that older and stronger boys on his team couldn't manage, and so the fact that he was able to catch them at all is actually an accomplishment of Abe's, not a failure... and I can't help but think he knows that, too, which is why he finds it so irritating when Haruna twits him about it.
Sooo.... if not that, what was it?
"What the catcher devotes to the pitcher, the pitcher returns with trust."
This is what Momokan tells Abe near the end of episode 7 of the original series, after the practice match against Mihoshi. From the beginning of Oofuri until that moment, everything was all about Abe learning this one essential lesson, which was even more important than Mihashi learning to be confident in himself... because Mihashi could never have gained that confidence to begin with if Abe hadn't decided, ultimately, to be on Mihashi's side.
And it's right after Abe learns this, that we meet Haruna. In the world of storytelling, this is not a coincidence.
I've researched enough about baseball to know that it's fairly commonplace for pitchers to be eccentric and often rather flaky and fragile, whereas catchers tend to be more chill and laid-back and down-to-earth. The roles don't create these personality types: rather, it's the opposite, where a person's fundamental personality type is what draws them to either of these roles to begin with. And because this dynamic is reinforced by the responsiblities each party holds, what this pretty much boils down to is that the catcher's first job, before anything else, is to be an emotional support for his pitcher. It doesn't go the other way around: it's not the pitcher's job to buck up the catcher, it's the pitcher's job to pitch. And for the pitcher to pitch well, he needs to have that complete trust in his catcher, knowing he can count on his catcher completely.
I mean, it's obvious with Akimaru, right? Akimaru is all ~~amazing catcher~~ at Haruna, but Akimaru never does the things that would give Haruna confidence and relief to know that his catcher, his real catcher (sorry Machida!) is on his side. And we see how that lack of trust causes Haruna to fall apart after their fight in the game against ARC... Haruna pretty much stops being amazing as soon as Akimaru yells at him, and the story makes it clear that this is pretty much all Akimaru's fault.
It's obvious with Abe too, in Abe's dynamic with Mihashi. We see how Mihashi falls apart when he lacks catcher support, and then we see how he can flourish when he has it. We see how Abe gave Mihashi relief, and so we know that Abe is doing his job. That's how it works.
And with Haruna, at first it looks like Abe gave him relief too, that Abe was nothing but a good catcher towards Haruna... Haruna DID get better during his time with Abe, and ended up finding a happier and more natural and stable way of play, which it something that goes to Abe's credit. Even Haruna thinks so... after the ARC loss, he expresses gratitude for what Abe did for him, and apologizes for not living up to it. That should be enough to satisfy anyone-- but did it satisfy Abe? Are all Abe's issues with Haruna truly resolved? Or is there still some unfinished business? Does Abe need to apologize for anything himself?
Yes. Very much, the answer is yes. And what he needs to apologize for is for letting Haruna down during the Kantou match.
Let me explain.
Everything about that match is set up to make Haruna look as guilty as possible. It all seems like everything was Haruna's fault... that Haruna was too stubborn, refusing to pitch even one of his amazing fastballs. That Haruna was too selfish, refusing to go over his agreed-upon pitch count. That Haruna was too callous and not attuned to Abe's feelings.
And it's true that Haruna was stubborn, and selfish, and callous during that game. But then again, it's just as easy to blame everything on Mihashi too, for what happened during his own time in middle school... that Mihashi was too stubborn, refusing to give up the mound. That Mihashi was too selfish, refusing to let Kanou pitch. That Mihashi was too callous, not paying attention to the feelings of Kanou and Hatake and all of his teammates when he kept pitching, well beyond any type of appropriate pitch count limit that even pros would balk at. Mihashi made all the same mistakes as Haruna did, but in reverse.... Haruna suffered all the same indignities, but in reverse. Mihashi and Haruna were written to be mirror images of each other, seemingly totally opposite but at the core, the same: they are both consummate pitchers who share the most important qualification of being a pitcher: it's to love the act of pitching itself... to be madly in love with pitching.
And so what's the most important thing a catcher can do for a pitcher? In my opinion, it would be to support his love for the game, and to help remove any emotional obstacles that are getting in the way of his indulging in the pure love of pitching.
And what were Haruna's emotional obstacles? During the Kantou match, it was pretty much Abe himself that was the obstacle standing in the way of his love of pitching.
We see this all laid out in episode nine, the one going over Abe and Haruna's shared past. The Kantou match flashback is fairly involved, broken up into several parts so that we can see Abe reflect on the significance of each part. In the first part of the flashback, the first thing we see is the starting pitcher for Todakita apologizing... first to the team, but then to Haruna, as if he were letting down Haruna specifically by allowing all those runs. Haruna is standing at the far side of the dugout in that scene, with Abe at his side, and just accepts it all silently, not saying a word when one of the other teammates rushes to reassure the starting pitcher by saying that "Motoki will throw for the rest of the game." And Abe looked on silently too, even though he knew as well as the rest of them that Motoki was playing with a strict pitch count he'd pre-negotiated with the coach. It was actually a pretty emotionally manipulative moment, and Haruna is singled out as being the force that could help them to win the game, which has the implicit meaning that if they lose, it will mostly be Haruna's fault. Haruna could have pointed out to all of them that they needed to get at least five runs to make his efforts worthwhile, but he didn't... he saved it for when he was alone with Abe soon afterwards, who was supposed to be on his side, helping to make him feel good about his upcoming pitching.
But instead, Abe just added to the pressure. There were many, many different sorts of things Abe could have said to Haruna when Haruna pointed out that five runs were impossible. He could have said, "no, it's not impossible! Everyone believes you can hold us down to just those five, and so everyone is going to try their hardest to give you those five runs!" He could have said, "I don't know about anyone else, but when I'm at bat, I will do my best to get you at least one run!" He could have said any number of encouraging things. Instead, he told Haruna stuff Haruna already knew, like "if we win, we'll be in the Kantou Best 8." "You don't pitch in consecutive games anyway." "You'll step down after 80 pitches, so where's the problem?" Not a single word of that was encouraging... in fact, it was downright insulting, kind of, "we all know you're lazy, but you're also awesome when you want to be, so just try and be awesome for a change and then maybe we'll still have a chance."
Haruna's response is really interesting, since he turns to give Abe the sort of evil scary glare that he'd supposedly left behind back in the bad old days of his middle school team, with his middle school coach. And I think the reason he makes that glare is that Haruna for a moment is thinking, "it's happening again. I'm going to be singled out, again. They're all going to put everything on me, so when we lose, as it is all too likely we will, they'll all be blaming me. Again." That glare signals Haruna is at maximum defensiveness with A.T. shield fully raised, protecting himself from the bad feelings that come when he's made to feel like a disappointment to his team-- and more importantly, the bad feelings that come from feeling like he let down the one person he'd learned to trust the most. Back in middle school, I believe that it was ultimately Akimaru who Haruna felt like he was letting down, but we still have no proof of that. But here, we can see where it is Abe that is putting his own disappointment on the line, making Abe's feelings the stakes for which Haruna is pitching.
Abe was Haruna's only real friend on that team, I think. This was the equivalent moment for Haruna that the moment Abe had with Mihashi in the bushes back at Mihoshi was for Mihashi. This was a time where doing something nice for Haruna would have some real meaning. It's not like Abe and Haruna were in a hand-holding mode with each other... the hand-holding itself probably wouldn't have worked (I can't even imagine them having an intimate hand-holding moment with each other, lol). But maybe a friendly Akimaru-style kick to the ass would.
Could you imagine if, when Abe had tracked Mihashi down before the game against Mihoshi, if Abe had behaved in a similar way upon finding Mihashi being bullied by Hatake? If instead of saying, "omg, why was he threatening you?" he'd said, "you know, I understand how that Hatake person feels, since you seriously are irritating. But let's just forget about that since you won't have to see them again after today, and you know with me, I'm at least not going to break your arms or anything. You still suck though. Let's go win a baseball game!"
Of course that wouldn't have worked! And this was the same kind of critical moment for Haruna! Mihashi had all sorts of demons from middle school, demons he needed Abe's help to exorcize. But Haruna had his demons too, and needed help just as bad, and during this critical moment when Haruna needed a friend who stood by him and reassured him that even if they lost, it wouldn't be all his fault... Abe seriously failed to deliver. Abe let him down.
It's obvious that Abe knows he screwed up and said the wrong thing there, because immediately he turns to bow to Haruna, asking for Haruna to please pitch at full strength. That "please" was really an "I'm sorry," and it actually worked... Haruna backed off enough so that he could more or less calmly explain his rationale for why he didn't want to pitch at full strength, not during this game that he felt they were certain to lose. Haruna even gets cheered to the point that he opens negotiations, offering "in exchange, I'll pitch according to your signs," and turns to give Abe a kind of half-smile.
That half-smile is even more interesting to me than the glare. It's a sign that Haruna, in his bumbling, boorish, no-control-barbarian kind of way, was trying to reach out to Abe. To give him something that would restore Abe's faith in him. To show Abe that he was listening and paying attention after all, and was going to give Abe the one thing he thought Abe wanted most... better control, and deference to Abe's superior sense of strategy. I think it was also Haruna's way of showing a vulnerability, because even though he'd been working on his control (we learn this later), his control still really wasn't all that good, and since Abe was going to be giving all the signs and Haruna promised to follow them, Abe would end up getting a full and accurate measure of exactly where Haruna's inadequacies were, which I think was a big thing for Haruna to offer. I believe that when Haruna makes that little half-smile, he's hoping that Abe will give him the support he needs, so that he doesn't have to feel so alone on this team where he's still kind of an outsider.
But all Abe could think about, when reflecting on this memory of the past, was just how sucky Haruna's control actually was.
So Abe's response to Haruna's offer is to continue to beg for full-strength fastballs, making an increasingly pathetic bid for Haruna to give him ten, no eight, no five, no three... no, one fast fastball! One ball would be fine! I do feel for Abe here... he was so tiny and vulnerable, and he probably didn't have 100% confidence in his own lead, so wanted some latitude to depend on Haruna's fastballs for a bit. And I don't think it was at all an unreasonable thing for him to ask. But... and this is important... he was supposed to ask in a way which was supportive of his pitcher, which would make Haruna feel good about himself for saying yes... which would pump Haruna up, making Haruna want to say yes. The way Abe begged for even one measly fastball displayed diminishing confidence in Haruna. It was like saying, "I don't expect much from you, but maybe you can give this little? No, that's too much? Well, how about even less? Still no? Well, why don't you do this totally minimal and pointless level of activity, just to show me you've still got a pulse out there, at least." It's a super, super, super insulting way to ask for what he wanted, and showed just how much Abe had left to learn about giving emotional support to pitchers.
I mean. Haruna reponds by cleaning out his ears, saying that he'll step off the mound if Abe says one more word about it. That moment seemed pretty bad for Haruna, like Haruna was just being a total insensitive jerk, but when I thought about it more, I realized what he's really saying there is, "you think I'm worthless anyway, so I might as well not even be here. That's what you really want, right? If I can't make my fast fastballs, I'm worthless to you, aren't I? Is there even any point for me being here?"
And so when I think about it, that's really where a speech like, "I like you, not just as a pitcher! I like you because you're working hard!" ... that's where a speech like that would actually mean something, make a difference. Haruna probably wanted Abe to believe in his efforts. He wanted Abe to praise him for having worked to improve his control, because that's where Haruna's hard work during that year paid off. Brute speed was Haruna's gift, something he didn't really need to work for at all, but what Haruna really wanted was for Abe to see where his efforts really were. But what he got instead was the equivalent of Abe's mean speech to Mihashi, the one where he said, "tomorrow, without using full-strength pitches, throw according to the signs. Otherwise we'll lose." Abe blew Haruna off, but because Haruna isn't a burst-into-tears kind of guy, it wasn't a situation where Haruna looked bullied... instead, Abe made it out to look like HE was the one being bullied, even though Haruna had no intention of bullying him, and it probably made Haruna think that Abe DIDN'T like him as a person, or even as a pitcher... he probably felt like Abe only saw value in him as a high-speed pitching machine.
Having said that, I doubt that Haruna is holding any grudges about this. Haruna, like Mihashi, doesn't really spend time hating anyone. If Haruna thinks back on that game, I'm sure all he sees are his own faults, because that's ultimately what he apologized for to Abe, for being selfish and for failing to give his all. I don't think it's like Abe needs to apologize to make Haruna feel better about anything. But if Abe apologized, HE'D feel better, since I think after he himself got injured, he finally realized how isolating of an experience that being injured can be. He probably wishes he could have been a better catcher to Haruna, and in order for Abe to now be the best catcher to Mihashi that he can be, Abe will eventually need to settle this last bit of unfinished business with Haruna, and apologize already, for never telling Haruna that he saw him as a friend, and not just as a pitcher.
It was after I spent a ridiculous amount of time thinking about this, figuring this out, that I realized that I found myself interested in Haruna. And everything since then has been about me falling more and more for this really difficult and confounding person, who can be really sweet at times but who can also be really, really awful, all depending on how he thinks people feel about him.
.+.
Bonus answer: my top ten cutest Haruna moments!
- Kaguyama kicking Haruna in the butt! "Ow! Ow! How cruel, kicking with spikes!"
- Haruna cracking himself up over the bruises he gave Abe. "What is this?! You can even see the stitches clearly!" (aka the "no-control barbarian" moment XD)
- Haruna dere-dereing at Akimaru about Abe, near the end of episode 9. "Well, he's good as a catcher, but... it's because he goes around calling people the worst." The way Haruna grabs the brim of his hat and gets all shifty eyed is so... DO I EVEN NEED TO SAY IT???
- thanking Miyashita-senpai for all her hard work! He bows right at her and then straightens up and gets incredibly goofy, and it's obvious he is intoxicated by her cuteness, BECOMING UTTERLY ADORABLE IN TURN.
- encouraging Kaguyan from right field! "Let's finish them off, pitcher! One out! Double play, come on!"
- Haruna's excessive self-confidence pumping the team up. "Yeah! And they won't get another [hit] off me!" But it's not the smiling and pointing at himself that is this cutest part of this moment. It's when everyone laughs at him and he is all, "eh, eh?" HE DOESN'T UNDERSTAND HIS OWN CUTENESS AT ALL.
- telling the Kasukabe twins they look alike. After taking a dive following an unsuccessful attempt at a sacrifice bunt squeeze play, he is getting up from having tasted dirt and looks up over his shoulder to see the twins standing right behind him, looking out at the field of play. "You guys really do have the exact same face," he says, getting up (without dusting himself off!), with all of his characteristic lack of tact and more importantly, TOTAL CUTENESS
- chibi!Haruna: "I'm the pitcher, so you be catcher, ok?" NEED I EVEN SAY MORE???
- Haruna's epic apology to Abe in chapter 74. The whole thing is just so fantastic, but the best part is his whole, "don't hate me anymore, okay?" I don't know about anyone else, but I couldn't NOT forgive someone who looked at me the way he does when he said that!
AND MY TOP FAVORITE CUTE HARUNA MOMENT:
- After Machida apologizes to Haruna for thinking that with him they'd never lose (near the end of the Kasukabe game, during a team conference on the mound after Kasukabe gets a HOME RUN off Haruna's fastball), Haruna responds in a way that exists far beyond the bounds of what I would consider to be normal in that kind of situation. Instead of trying to reassure Machida, or say it was no big deal, or try to pump the team up by saying "let's move on," or saying something like, "losing is a part of the game, it's okay," he gets all thoughtful and abstracted, going inside himself for a second, and says... wait for it...
"JUST NOW, I HEARD THE VOICE OF MACHIDA-SAN'S HEART."
♥ COULD HE EVEN GET ANY CUTER? SERIOUSLY, COULD HE?!!
... and now, to answer the rest of Teap's five things, in significantly less detail:
2. herons,
Sadly, herons didn't even have any special significance to me, when I picked out this LJ name. I just wanted to come up with a pretty and unique username, and herons are a pretty type of bird, and I liked the idea of a gale of herons, so....
3. Honey&Clover,
Hmmm, there's so much I could say about this, which is one of my top ten favorite anime series of all time. It's a huge influence on what and how I write, more so than any other anime series (excepting, of course, my top favorite anime series, Haibane Renmei).
So, let me talk briefly about my favorite character in this series, Hanamoto Hagumi.
I think that it is probably my destiny to be most attracted to the characters I decide are the most alone and screwed up, characters who end up being really strong and awesome despite that, and for this series, Hagu fits that bill the best. She's nothing like Haruna, except in that she is neurotic like him, and devotes herself to her chosen career as much as he does, and everyone ends up loving her, just like him.
Other than that, they are nothing alike.
Hagu is a tiny elfin girl who is really small for her eighteen years of age, which is how old she is when we first meet her in both the anime and the manga. She looks really young, and acts almost autistic at first, which (as it soon becomes clear) comes more from crippling shyness than from any fundamental inability to relate to the feelings of others. She's also an extremely talented artist who has worked hard at it all her life, despite growing up in limited circumstances which would have held most other people back... her parents couldn't take care of her, so she ended up being raised by her increasingly senile grandmother, living alone with her out in the country and not being able to draw much besides the ever-changing view out her static window. Hagu suffers from stress-related psychogenic health issues, nausea and fevers mostly that come from her being so fundamentally weak in body, and seemingly, also weak in the mind.
Hagu grows a lot during the series, becoming stronger and learning how to find the strength to speak her mind... and as she does, she turns out to be really funny and insightful and really, really sweet. She has many eccentricities, but instead of finding these limiting, she channels them all into her art, making a strength out of her unique vision of the world. She doesn't see the world the same way most people do, and puts that into her art, showing to the world the world as she sees it.
One of the several things she shares with Haruna is the fact that she suffers career-threatening injury during the course of the story. I think I like the idea of that... having to face the idea of losing something so fundamental to who she is as a person, it makes her have to reassess where her own worth lies in the world. Sometime after her injury, in a moment of openness when she is crying to Shu-chan about her fears, opening up about her stress, she thinks this:
"Once, when I was little, I saw God. If... if I didn't have this paper and pencil, what would I have done? Being alone among all these people... how would I have lived...?
Ah, that's it. I was okay because I had my pencil and paper. Drawing gave me life and protected me. Ah, God... if I were ever to stop drawing, at that moment I will return my life to you."
... and she wants to give up. It is as the moment of this realization that Morita returns to her, and whisks her off.
Morita has his own reasons to want to give up, since he'd spent most of his time and emotional energy during the course of this manga trying to save his difficult brother from drowning in bitterness, being the support that his brother needs. Despite all of his efforts to prove to his brother how much he cares, Morita's brother still runs off, leaving Morita alone. And Morita tells her the one thing that ends up being the main point of many a romantic tale: "all that matters is that you're alive, and that we can be together. That's all I need. That's all I care about anymore."
And in a lot of stories, that would be the moment of triumph and release... the moment where everything is resolved and all is right with the world, because the two lovers end up finding that the most important meaning in their life can be found with each other.
But in Honey and Clover, that is totally not the point at all. In Honey and Clover, that's shown as giving up, as defeat. For them to be together, for them each to give up their great talents as artists and live as "normal people:" that's not really an acceptable solution. And it's Hagu that realizes this, and Hagu who rejects Morita's proposal. Not because she doesn't love him... but rather, because she loves him too much to let him do that to himself. And ultimately, because she has gained too much confidence on her own to do that to herself, either.
Honestly, I think that Hagu's eventual realization is the same as the one that Haruna probably had after his own injury.
"Just watch... my hand will get better. I'm going to get it working again. And you know what? Even if it doesn't get better... even if I don't leave anything behind to show that I was alive... that's okay. Because now I know. That I want to paint. That painting is my whole life... and I can't live without it."
It was when I was writing "I Will Be Watching You, Always," for Shirono that I ended up finding the similarities between Haruna and Hagu, not in personality, but in story arc, and weirdly it was in writing that that I finally found myself shipping Haruna with Akimaru, who isn't exactly the most obvious choice as the best person for Haruna. I've felt like Haruna's relationships with Abe, Kaguyama, and Akimaru kind of mirror the ones which Hagu has with Morita, Takemoto, and Shuji.
During the course of Honey and Clover, the main character (if I had to pick just one) would have to be Takemoto, and it's Takemoto I ended up rooting for through most of Honey and Clover. I loved how much Takemoto was devoted to Hagu, how natural and free their relationship was, how uncomplicated and healthy their friendship was. Takemoto took his love for Hagu and found in it inspiration to follow his own dreams, and so a part of me always wished that she would have changed her mind, and chosen him in the end. So in this sense, Kaguyama is really the one who I should be shipping with Haruna, since Kaguyama and Haruna have the same sort of connection that Hagu and Takemoto had (at least, according to my reckoning: Teap, you might well disagree!). And Takemoto is certainly braver than Shuji was... Shuji, who never could find the strength to confess his feelings, and so ended up never being able to be with Harada in the way he probably wanted. Shuji, who fell in love with Hagu after Harada died, who found his own salvation by devoting himself to her... never asking to be loved in return.
When I first saw Honey and Clover, I was initially blindsided by Shuji's feelings, and I was disappointed that Hagu chose him over Takemoto, who was so good for her as a person, and over Morita, who was so good for her passion for art. I got why she did it: Shuji was the only one with whom she could pursue her goals at ease, freeing her to be able to do the one thing in life she most wanted to do... make art. But it still made me sad, because even I could see that when it came to pure feelings, she loved Morita more, and when it came to who helped her most to be normal and healthy as a person, that was Takemoto.
But now I think I understand. Because for her, just like for Haruna, she just has no choice but to make art. Being an artist is the only life for her. She chooses the person she is most comfortable with and who can support her best as an artist, not because he's the romantic choice or the healthy choice, but because she needs him more than she needs anyone else in order to be who she wants to be.
It's like... ridiculously codependent. But it's a functional kind of codependency, and even though she probably will never sleep with Shuji (I kind of get grossed out even imagining it, because they are cousins and worse, he's way older than her), and because Shuji can never be her equal as an artist, he gives her what she needs the most: the ability to make art at ease.
So by the time I decided to connect Hagu to Haruna, I realized that I was really drawn to shipping him with Akimaru, mostly because Akimaru is not really the best choice for Haruna either, he's just the only one who's most willing to sacrifice his own feelings and life in order to be of help to him. I see Akimaru as being someone that Haruna can't love right away, and won't fall in love with easily, because deep down, it's not really Akimaru who he wants. WHICH IS REALLY SAD FOR AKIMARU, but is also very inspiring to me as a writer, because for both Haruna and Akimaru's sake, I want to find the ways in which Haruna can change his mind, and learn to love Akimaru best after all. Maybe as a way to make up for how I feel towards Shuji, that little bit of disappointment I have for both him and Hagu when I think about the way they will live together, him never being able to have sex with her, and her never being able to be with someone who inspires her. Because I know that in the end, both Shuji and Hagu will both be happiest with each other, even if they don't get everything they want by being together.
4. strange working hours,
Ehehehe... um. Well. I work from 8pm to 8am on the nights I work. This is definitely the most insane and seemingly unpalatable working life I could have devised for myself, right? But because I'm willing to work those kind of crazy hours at a busy hospital where at night, I'm on my own, I end up only having to work 10 shifts per month, and that counts as full time. I make full time wages, and since there are no other internal medicine doctors in this hospital other than the residents and interns (who I don't work with), I find myself closest with the ER doctors, who are all pretty awesome and fun, in ways you won't find with your average Internal Medicine doctor.
5. touching penises for work and 5. introducing new friends XD
ADMIT IT, YOU REALLY WANT ME TO TALK ABOUT THE PENISES??
Fortunately, I'm too busy to do thorough exams on all of my patients, so a lot of times, I don't even have to look down there for either the men or the women, which is fine by me because a lot of the people who come into my hospital are not the most hygienic to begin with, and are often pretty neglectful towards their own genitalia, so it can be a mess down there and trust me, NOT SEXY AT ALL. But sometimes of course it's relevant and so I end up needing to look, and sometimes of course people are just waving it all around without caring much, and I've seen my fair share of erect dicks from strange men who decide to get turned on by being examined. As Izumi would say, I'M USED TO IT, and so it doesn't especially faze me anymore. But I have a pretty unromantic view of dicks in general because of it, and so even fairly hot dicks don't much turn me on, because well... THEY NEED TO BE ATTACHED TO MEN I ALSO FIND HOT, and as it turns out, I can be pretty picky about that.
BUT SINCE YOU ALLEGEDLY WANT ME TO TALK ABOUT INTRODUCING NEW FRIENDS, I'LL TAKE A MOMENT TO DO THAT TOO.
I love introducing people to people I think they might like. It's not like this is a hobby of mine, and so it's not like I'm on the hunt, trying to "make matches" amongst people who I think would be good as friends. But sometimes it so happens that someone I know seems to share interests with someone else I know, and even if I'm not necessarily a close friend to either party, I don't mind pointing people out to one another, and telling them they should be friends. Probably this is mostly because I'm just shameless like that, but I think it's also because more and more, I find myself being friends with people who mostly have a positive outlook on life, or who at least have a lot of fun interests they follow as a way to make their life better. And so, for instance, when introducing you to Daeva, I think a lot of people would be reluctant to take "you're both Italian and you both love fannish things, and Haruna," as a reason to introduce you to each other, but it was really more than that. It' was just a feeling I had, that you two shared enough in common that you'd get along well with each other. I had no expectations that you'd become as close as you have, but it makes me really happy that happened: mostly I just figured out that no matter what, you'd end up being good to each other, and so no harm could possibly come from it, so why not?
I'M KIND OF CAREFREE LIKE THAT, YOU SEE. So I wish I could say I had some deep and involved process by which I decide to introduce people to each other, but it's not like that. XDD
...
NEXT, I will be addressing tomoe_daeva's five things. But before that, I have some fanfic I need to work on. So hold on Daeva... I have not forgotten! Just let me write some Akiharu fic first! Although you might want to pick something other than shogi since um... I actually don't know anything about shogi.
Comment to this post asking for a list, and I will give you five things I associate with you. They might make sense or they might be totally random. Then post that list, with your commentary, to your LJ (or just add a reply back at me). Other people (including me~) can get lists from you, and the meme merrily perpetuates itself.
1. HARUNA (LOL so predictable! LOL I know you'd write a series of books on this XD Fanfics!Haruna doesn't count!!)
Well, as many of my fellow Oofuri friends know, I first got into this fandom shipping Mihashi/Abe, and Abe was my total favorite, whereas Haruna... wasn't really much on my radar at all. I never hated him though! I know a lot of people start off disliking him because of everything that he did to Abe, but from the start I've always thought of Abe as biased. Not that I thought Abe was lying... he is a pretty reliable narrator about the past, I think. But I think that when it comes to appportioning blame, he was always way too quick to blame Haruna, so much so that I figured that at least part of that was some unexplored guilt of his, for whatever things he'd done that secretly made him feel like he had let Haruna down.
So, because I loved Abe so damned much, I decided to investigate what it was that he could secretly be so guilty about... the reasons he won't even admit to himself about how he let Haruna down.
I mean, it's too easy to say it was just because it took him so long to be able to catch Haruna's pitches, right? For one thing, his feelings about that are not at all a secret. And I have a hard time seeing the shame in having difficulties catching pitches that older and stronger boys on his team couldn't manage, and so the fact that he was able to catch them at all is actually an accomplishment of Abe's, not a failure... and I can't help but think he knows that, too, which is why he finds it so irritating when Haruna twits him about it.
Sooo.... if not that, what was it?
"What the catcher devotes to the pitcher, the pitcher returns with trust."
This is what Momokan tells Abe near the end of episode 7 of the original series, after the practice match against Mihoshi. From the beginning of Oofuri until that moment, everything was all about Abe learning this one essential lesson, which was even more important than Mihashi learning to be confident in himself... because Mihashi could never have gained that confidence to begin with if Abe hadn't decided, ultimately, to be on Mihashi's side.
And it's right after Abe learns this, that we meet Haruna. In the world of storytelling, this is not a coincidence.
I've researched enough about baseball to know that it's fairly commonplace for pitchers to be eccentric and often rather flaky and fragile, whereas catchers tend to be more chill and laid-back and down-to-earth. The roles don't create these personality types: rather, it's the opposite, where a person's fundamental personality type is what draws them to either of these roles to begin with. And because this dynamic is reinforced by the responsiblities each party holds, what this pretty much boils down to is that the catcher's first job, before anything else, is to be an emotional support for his pitcher. It doesn't go the other way around: it's not the pitcher's job to buck up the catcher, it's the pitcher's job to pitch. And for the pitcher to pitch well, he needs to have that complete trust in his catcher, knowing he can count on his catcher completely.
I mean, it's obvious with Akimaru, right? Akimaru is all ~~amazing catcher~~ at Haruna, but Akimaru never does the things that would give Haruna confidence and relief to know that his catcher, his real catcher (sorry Machida!) is on his side. And we see how that lack of trust causes Haruna to fall apart after their fight in the game against ARC... Haruna pretty much stops being amazing as soon as Akimaru yells at him, and the story makes it clear that this is pretty much all Akimaru's fault.
It's obvious with Abe too, in Abe's dynamic with Mihashi. We see how Mihashi falls apart when he lacks catcher support, and then we see how he can flourish when he has it. We see how Abe gave Mihashi relief, and so we know that Abe is doing his job. That's how it works.
And with Haruna, at first it looks like Abe gave him relief too, that Abe was nothing but a good catcher towards Haruna... Haruna DID get better during his time with Abe, and ended up finding a happier and more natural and stable way of play, which it something that goes to Abe's credit. Even Haruna thinks so... after the ARC loss, he expresses gratitude for what Abe did for him, and apologizes for not living up to it. That should be enough to satisfy anyone-- but did it satisfy Abe? Are all Abe's issues with Haruna truly resolved? Or is there still some unfinished business? Does Abe need to apologize for anything himself?
Yes. Very much, the answer is yes. And what he needs to apologize for is for letting Haruna down during the Kantou match.
Let me explain.
Everything about that match is set up to make Haruna look as guilty as possible. It all seems like everything was Haruna's fault... that Haruna was too stubborn, refusing to pitch even one of his amazing fastballs. That Haruna was too selfish, refusing to go over his agreed-upon pitch count. That Haruna was too callous and not attuned to Abe's feelings.
And it's true that Haruna was stubborn, and selfish, and callous during that game. But then again, it's just as easy to blame everything on Mihashi too, for what happened during his own time in middle school... that Mihashi was too stubborn, refusing to give up the mound. That Mihashi was too selfish, refusing to let Kanou pitch. That Mihashi was too callous, not paying attention to the feelings of Kanou and Hatake and all of his teammates when he kept pitching, well beyond any type of appropriate pitch count limit that even pros would balk at. Mihashi made all the same mistakes as Haruna did, but in reverse.... Haruna suffered all the same indignities, but in reverse. Mihashi and Haruna were written to be mirror images of each other, seemingly totally opposite but at the core, the same: they are both consummate pitchers who share the most important qualification of being a pitcher: it's to love the act of pitching itself... to be madly in love with pitching.
And so what's the most important thing a catcher can do for a pitcher? In my opinion, it would be to support his love for the game, and to help remove any emotional obstacles that are getting in the way of his indulging in the pure love of pitching.
And what were Haruna's emotional obstacles? During the Kantou match, it was pretty much Abe himself that was the obstacle standing in the way of his love of pitching.
We see this all laid out in episode nine, the one going over Abe and Haruna's shared past. The Kantou match flashback is fairly involved, broken up into several parts so that we can see Abe reflect on the significance of each part. In the first part of the flashback, the first thing we see is the starting pitcher for Todakita apologizing... first to the team, but then to Haruna, as if he were letting down Haruna specifically by allowing all those runs. Haruna is standing at the far side of the dugout in that scene, with Abe at his side, and just accepts it all silently, not saying a word when one of the other teammates rushes to reassure the starting pitcher by saying that "Motoki will throw for the rest of the game." And Abe looked on silently too, even though he knew as well as the rest of them that Motoki was playing with a strict pitch count he'd pre-negotiated with the coach. It was actually a pretty emotionally manipulative moment, and Haruna is singled out as being the force that could help them to win the game, which has the implicit meaning that if they lose, it will mostly be Haruna's fault. Haruna could have pointed out to all of them that they needed to get at least five runs to make his efforts worthwhile, but he didn't... he saved it for when he was alone with Abe soon afterwards, who was supposed to be on his side, helping to make him feel good about his upcoming pitching.
But instead, Abe just added to the pressure. There were many, many different sorts of things Abe could have said to Haruna when Haruna pointed out that five runs were impossible. He could have said, "no, it's not impossible! Everyone believes you can hold us down to just those five, and so everyone is going to try their hardest to give you those five runs!" He could have said, "I don't know about anyone else, but when I'm at bat, I will do my best to get you at least one run!" He could have said any number of encouraging things. Instead, he told Haruna stuff Haruna already knew, like "if we win, we'll be in the Kantou Best 8." "You don't pitch in consecutive games anyway." "You'll step down after 80 pitches, so where's the problem?" Not a single word of that was encouraging... in fact, it was downright insulting, kind of, "we all know you're lazy, but you're also awesome when you want to be, so just try and be awesome for a change and then maybe we'll still have a chance."
Haruna's response is really interesting, since he turns to give Abe the sort of evil scary glare that he'd supposedly left behind back in the bad old days of his middle school team, with his middle school coach. And I think the reason he makes that glare is that Haruna for a moment is thinking, "it's happening again. I'm going to be singled out, again. They're all going to put everything on me, so when we lose, as it is all too likely we will, they'll all be blaming me. Again." That glare signals Haruna is at maximum defensiveness with A.T. shield fully raised, protecting himself from the bad feelings that come when he's made to feel like a disappointment to his team-- and more importantly, the bad feelings that come from feeling like he let down the one person he'd learned to trust the most. Back in middle school, I believe that it was ultimately Akimaru who Haruna felt like he was letting down, but we still have no proof of that. But here, we can see where it is Abe that is putting his own disappointment on the line, making Abe's feelings the stakes for which Haruna is pitching.
Abe was Haruna's only real friend on that team, I think. This was the equivalent moment for Haruna that the moment Abe had with Mihashi in the bushes back at Mihoshi was for Mihashi. This was a time where doing something nice for Haruna would have some real meaning. It's not like Abe and Haruna were in a hand-holding mode with each other... the hand-holding itself probably wouldn't have worked (I can't even imagine them having an intimate hand-holding moment with each other, lol). But maybe a friendly Akimaru-style kick to the ass would.
Could you imagine if, when Abe had tracked Mihashi down before the game against Mihoshi, if Abe had behaved in a similar way upon finding Mihashi being bullied by Hatake? If instead of saying, "omg, why was he threatening you?" he'd said, "you know, I understand how that Hatake person feels, since you seriously are irritating. But let's just forget about that since you won't have to see them again after today, and you know with me, I'm at least not going to break your arms or anything. You still suck though. Let's go win a baseball game!"
Of course that wouldn't have worked! And this was the same kind of critical moment for Haruna! Mihashi had all sorts of demons from middle school, demons he needed Abe's help to exorcize. But Haruna had his demons too, and needed help just as bad, and during this critical moment when Haruna needed a friend who stood by him and reassured him that even if they lost, it wouldn't be all his fault... Abe seriously failed to deliver. Abe let him down.
It's obvious that Abe knows he screwed up and said the wrong thing there, because immediately he turns to bow to Haruna, asking for Haruna to please pitch at full strength. That "please" was really an "I'm sorry," and it actually worked... Haruna backed off enough so that he could more or less calmly explain his rationale for why he didn't want to pitch at full strength, not during this game that he felt they were certain to lose. Haruna even gets cheered to the point that he opens negotiations, offering "in exchange, I'll pitch according to your signs," and turns to give Abe a kind of half-smile.
That half-smile is even more interesting to me than the glare. It's a sign that Haruna, in his bumbling, boorish, no-control-barbarian kind of way, was trying to reach out to Abe. To give him something that would restore Abe's faith in him. To show Abe that he was listening and paying attention after all, and was going to give Abe the one thing he thought Abe wanted most... better control, and deference to Abe's superior sense of strategy. I think it was also Haruna's way of showing a vulnerability, because even though he'd been working on his control (we learn this later), his control still really wasn't all that good, and since Abe was going to be giving all the signs and Haruna promised to follow them, Abe would end up getting a full and accurate measure of exactly where Haruna's inadequacies were, which I think was a big thing for Haruna to offer. I believe that when Haruna makes that little half-smile, he's hoping that Abe will give him the support he needs, so that he doesn't have to feel so alone on this team where he's still kind of an outsider.
But all Abe could think about, when reflecting on this memory of the past, was just how sucky Haruna's control actually was.
So Abe's response to Haruna's offer is to continue to beg for full-strength fastballs, making an increasingly pathetic bid for Haruna to give him ten, no eight, no five, no three... no, one fast fastball! One ball would be fine! I do feel for Abe here... he was so tiny and vulnerable, and he probably didn't have 100% confidence in his own lead, so wanted some latitude to depend on Haruna's fastballs for a bit. And I don't think it was at all an unreasonable thing for him to ask. But... and this is important... he was supposed to ask in a way which was supportive of his pitcher, which would make Haruna feel good about himself for saying yes... which would pump Haruna up, making Haruna want to say yes. The way Abe begged for even one measly fastball displayed diminishing confidence in Haruna. It was like saying, "I don't expect much from you, but maybe you can give this little? No, that's too much? Well, how about even less? Still no? Well, why don't you do this totally minimal and pointless level of activity, just to show me you've still got a pulse out there, at least." It's a super, super, super insulting way to ask for what he wanted, and showed just how much Abe had left to learn about giving emotional support to pitchers.
I mean. Haruna reponds by cleaning out his ears, saying that he'll step off the mound if Abe says one more word about it. That moment seemed pretty bad for Haruna, like Haruna was just being a total insensitive jerk, but when I thought about it more, I realized what he's really saying there is, "you think I'm worthless anyway, so I might as well not even be here. That's what you really want, right? If I can't make my fast fastballs, I'm worthless to you, aren't I? Is there even any point for me being here?"
And so when I think about it, that's really where a speech like, "I like you, not just as a pitcher! I like you because you're working hard!" ... that's where a speech like that would actually mean something, make a difference. Haruna probably wanted Abe to believe in his efforts. He wanted Abe to praise him for having worked to improve his control, because that's where Haruna's hard work during that year paid off. Brute speed was Haruna's gift, something he didn't really need to work for at all, but what Haruna really wanted was for Abe to see where his efforts really were. But what he got instead was the equivalent of Abe's mean speech to Mihashi, the one where he said, "tomorrow, without using full-strength pitches, throw according to the signs. Otherwise we'll lose." Abe blew Haruna off, but because Haruna isn't a burst-into-tears kind of guy, it wasn't a situation where Haruna looked bullied... instead, Abe made it out to look like HE was the one being bullied, even though Haruna had no intention of bullying him, and it probably made Haruna think that Abe DIDN'T like him as a person, or even as a pitcher... he probably felt like Abe only saw value in him as a high-speed pitching machine.
Having said that, I doubt that Haruna is holding any grudges about this. Haruna, like Mihashi, doesn't really spend time hating anyone. If Haruna thinks back on that game, I'm sure all he sees are his own faults, because that's ultimately what he apologized for to Abe, for being selfish and for failing to give his all. I don't think it's like Abe needs to apologize to make Haruna feel better about anything. But if Abe apologized, HE'D feel better, since I think after he himself got injured, he finally realized how isolating of an experience that being injured can be. He probably wishes he could have been a better catcher to Haruna, and in order for Abe to now be the best catcher to Mihashi that he can be, Abe will eventually need to settle this last bit of unfinished business with Haruna, and apologize already, for never telling Haruna that he saw him as a friend, and not just as a pitcher.
It was after I spent a ridiculous amount of time thinking about this, figuring this out, that I realized that I found myself interested in Haruna. And everything since then has been about me falling more and more for this really difficult and confounding person, who can be really sweet at times but who can also be really, really awful, all depending on how he thinks people feel about him.
.+.
Bonus answer: my top ten cutest Haruna moments!
- Kaguyama kicking Haruna in the butt! "Ow! Ow! How cruel, kicking with spikes!"
- Haruna cracking himself up over the bruises he gave Abe. "What is this?! You can even see the stitches clearly!" (aka the "no-control barbarian" moment XD)
- Haruna dere-dereing at Akimaru about Abe, near the end of episode 9. "Well, he's good as a catcher, but... it's because he goes around calling people the worst." The way Haruna grabs the brim of his hat and gets all shifty eyed is so... DO I EVEN NEED TO SAY IT???
- thanking Miyashita-senpai for all her hard work! He bows right at her and then straightens up and gets incredibly goofy, and it's obvious he is intoxicated by her cuteness, BECOMING UTTERLY ADORABLE IN TURN.
- encouraging Kaguyan from right field! "Let's finish them off, pitcher! One out! Double play, come on!"
- Haruna's excessive self-confidence pumping the team up. "Yeah! And they won't get another [hit] off me!" But it's not the smiling and pointing at himself that is this cutest part of this moment. It's when everyone laughs at him and he is all, "eh, eh?" HE DOESN'T UNDERSTAND HIS OWN CUTENESS AT ALL.
- telling the Kasukabe twins they look alike. After taking a dive following an unsuccessful attempt at a sacrifice bunt squeeze play, he is getting up from having tasted dirt and looks up over his shoulder to see the twins standing right behind him, looking out at the field of play. "You guys really do have the exact same face," he says, getting up (without dusting himself off!), with all of his characteristic lack of tact and more importantly, TOTAL CUTENESS
- chibi!Haruna: "I'm the pitcher, so you be catcher, ok?" NEED I EVEN SAY MORE???
- Haruna's epic apology to Abe in chapter 74. The whole thing is just so fantastic, but the best part is his whole, "don't hate me anymore, okay?" I don't know about anyone else, but I couldn't NOT forgive someone who looked at me the way he does when he said that!
AND MY TOP FAVORITE CUTE HARUNA MOMENT:
- After Machida apologizes to Haruna for thinking that with him they'd never lose (near the end of the Kasukabe game, during a team conference on the mound after Kasukabe gets a HOME RUN off Haruna's fastball), Haruna responds in a way that exists far beyond the bounds of what I would consider to be normal in that kind of situation. Instead of trying to reassure Machida, or say it was no big deal, or try to pump the team up by saying "let's move on," or saying something like, "losing is a part of the game, it's okay," he gets all thoughtful and abstracted, going inside himself for a second, and says... wait for it...
"JUST NOW, I HEARD THE VOICE OF MACHIDA-SAN'S HEART."
♥ COULD HE EVEN GET ANY CUTER? SERIOUSLY, COULD HE?!!
... and now, to answer the rest of Teap's five things, in significantly less detail:
2. herons,
Sadly, herons didn't even have any special significance to me, when I picked out this LJ name. I just wanted to come up with a pretty and unique username, and herons are a pretty type of bird, and I liked the idea of a gale of herons, so....
3. Honey&Clover,
Hmmm, there's so much I could say about this, which is one of my top ten favorite anime series of all time. It's a huge influence on what and how I write, more so than any other anime series (excepting, of course, my top favorite anime series, Haibane Renmei).
So, let me talk briefly about my favorite character in this series, Hanamoto Hagumi.
I think that it is probably my destiny to be most attracted to the characters I decide are the most alone and screwed up, characters who end up being really strong and awesome despite that, and for this series, Hagu fits that bill the best. She's nothing like Haruna, except in that she is neurotic like him, and devotes herself to her chosen career as much as he does, and everyone ends up loving her, just like him.
Other than that, they are nothing alike.
Hagu is a tiny elfin girl who is really small for her eighteen years of age, which is how old she is when we first meet her in both the anime and the manga. She looks really young, and acts almost autistic at first, which (as it soon becomes clear) comes more from crippling shyness than from any fundamental inability to relate to the feelings of others. She's also an extremely talented artist who has worked hard at it all her life, despite growing up in limited circumstances which would have held most other people back... her parents couldn't take care of her, so she ended up being raised by her increasingly senile grandmother, living alone with her out in the country and not being able to draw much besides the ever-changing view out her static window. Hagu suffers from stress-related psychogenic health issues, nausea and fevers mostly that come from her being so fundamentally weak in body, and seemingly, also weak in the mind.
Hagu grows a lot during the series, becoming stronger and learning how to find the strength to speak her mind... and as she does, she turns out to be really funny and insightful and really, really sweet. She has many eccentricities, but instead of finding these limiting, she channels them all into her art, making a strength out of her unique vision of the world. She doesn't see the world the same way most people do, and puts that into her art, showing to the world the world as she sees it.
One of the several things she shares with Haruna is the fact that she suffers career-threatening injury during the course of the story. I think I like the idea of that... having to face the idea of losing something so fundamental to who she is as a person, it makes her have to reassess where her own worth lies in the world. Sometime after her injury, in a moment of openness when she is crying to Shu-chan about her fears, opening up about her stress, she thinks this:
"Once, when I was little, I saw God. If... if I didn't have this paper and pencil, what would I have done? Being alone among all these people... how would I have lived...?
Ah, that's it. I was okay because I had my pencil and paper. Drawing gave me life and protected me. Ah, God... if I were ever to stop drawing, at that moment I will return my life to you."
... and she wants to give up. It is as the moment of this realization that Morita returns to her, and whisks her off.
Morita has his own reasons to want to give up, since he'd spent most of his time and emotional energy during the course of this manga trying to save his difficult brother from drowning in bitterness, being the support that his brother needs. Despite all of his efforts to prove to his brother how much he cares, Morita's brother still runs off, leaving Morita alone. And Morita tells her the one thing that ends up being the main point of many a romantic tale: "all that matters is that you're alive, and that we can be together. That's all I need. That's all I care about anymore."
And in a lot of stories, that would be the moment of triumph and release... the moment where everything is resolved and all is right with the world, because the two lovers end up finding that the most important meaning in their life can be found with each other.
But in Honey and Clover, that is totally not the point at all. In Honey and Clover, that's shown as giving up, as defeat. For them to be together, for them each to give up their great talents as artists and live as "normal people:" that's not really an acceptable solution. And it's Hagu that realizes this, and Hagu who rejects Morita's proposal. Not because she doesn't love him... but rather, because she loves him too much to let him do that to himself. And ultimately, because she has gained too much confidence on her own to do that to herself, either.
Honestly, I think that Hagu's eventual realization is the same as the one that Haruna probably had after his own injury.
"Just watch... my hand will get better. I'm going to get it working again. And you know what? Even if it doesn't get better... even if I don't leave anything behind to show that I was alive... that's okay. Because now I know. That I want to paint. That painting is my whole life... and I can't live without it."
It was when I was writing "I Will Be Watching You, Always," for Shirono that I ended up finding the similarities between Haruna and Hagu, not in personality, but in story arc, and weirdly it was in writing that that I finally found myself shipping Haruna with Akimaru, who isn't exactly the most obvious choice as the best person for Haruna. I've felt like Haruna's relationships with Abe, Kaguyama, and Akimaru kind of mirror the ones which Hagu has with Morita, Takemoto, and Shuji.
During the course of Honey and Clover, the main character (if I had to pick just one) would have to be Takemoto, and it's Takemoto I ended up rooting for through most of Honey and Clover. I loved how much Takemoto was devoted to Hagu, how natural and free their relationship was, how uncomplicated and healthy their friendship was. Takemoto took his love for Hagu and found in it inspiration to follow his own dreams, and so a part of me always wished that she would have changed her mind, and chosen him in the end. So in this sense, Kaguyama is really the one who I should be shipping with Haruna, since Kaguyama and Haruna have the same sort of connection that Hagu and Takemoto had (at least, according to my reckoning: Teap, you might well disagree!). And Takemoto is certainly braver than Shuji was... Shuji, who never could find the strength to confess his feelings, and so ended up never being able to be with Harada in the way he probably wanted. Shuji, who fell in love with Hagu after Harada died, who found his own salvation by devoting himself to her... never asking to be loved in return.
When I first saw Honey and Clover, I was initially blindsided by Shuji's feelings, and I was disappointed that Hagu chose him over Takemoto, who was so good for her as a person, and over Morita, who was so good for her passion for art. I got why she did it: Shuji was the only one with whom she could pursue her goals at ease, freeing her to be able to do the one thing in life she most wanted to do... make art. But it still made me sad, because even I could see that when it came to pure feelings, she loved Morita more, and when it came to who helped her most to be normal and healthy as a person, that was Takemoto.
But now I think I understand. Because for her, just like for Haruna, she just has no choice but to make art. Being an artist is the only life for her. She chooses the person she is most comfortable with and who can support her best as an artist, not because he's the romantic choice or the healthy choice, but because she needs him more than she needs anyone else in order to be who she wants to be.
It's like... ridiculously codependent. But it's a functional kind of codependency, and even though she probably will never sleep with Shuji (I kind of get grossed out even imagining it, because they are cousins and worse, he's way older than her), and because Shuji can never be her equal as an artist, he gives her what she needs the most: the ability to make art at ease.
So by the time I decided to connect Hagu to Haruna, I realized that I was really drawn to shipping him with Akimaru, mostly because Akimaru is not really the best choice for Haruna either, he's just the only one who's most willing to sacrifice his own feelings and life in order to be of help to him. I see Akimaru as being someone that Haruna can't love right away, and won't fall in love with easily, because deep down, it's not really Akimaru who he wants. WHICH IS REALLY SAD FOR AKIMARU, but is also very inspiring to me as a writer, because for both Haruna and Akimaru's sake, I want to find the ways in which Haruna can change his mind, and learn to love Akimaru best after all. Maybe as a way to make up for how I feel towards Shuji, that little bit of disappointment I have for both him and Hagu when I think about the way they will live together, him never being able to have sex with her, and her never being able to be with someone who inspires her. Because I know that in the end, both Shuji and Hagu will both be happiest with each other, even if they don't get everything they want by being together.
4. strange working hours,
Ehehehe... um. Well. I work from 8pm to 8am on the nights I work. This is definitely the most insane and seemingly unpalatable working life I could have devised for myself, right? But because I'm willing to work those kind of crazy hours at a busy hospital where at night, I'm on my own, I end up only having to work 10 shifts per month, and that counts as full time. I make full time wages, and since there are no other internal medicine doctors in this hospital other than the residents and interns (who I don't work with), I find myself closest with the ER doctors, who are all pretty awesome and fun, in ways you won't find with your average Internal Medicine doctor.
5. touching penises for work and 5. introducing new friends XD
ADMIT IT, YOU REALLY WANT ME TO TALK ABOUT THE PENISES??
Fortunately, I'm too busy to do thorough exams on all of my patients, so a lot of times, I don't even have to look down there for either the men or the women, which is fine by me because a lot of the people who come into my hospital are not the most hygienic to begin with, and are often pretty neglectful towards their own genitalia, so it can be a mess down there and trust me, NOT SEXY AT ALL. But sometimes of course it's relevant and so I end up needing to look, and sometimes of course people are just waving it all around without caring much, and I've seen my fair share of erect dicks from strange men who decide to get turned on by being examined. As Izumi would say, I'M USED TO IT, and so it doesn't especially faze me anymore. But I have a pretty unromantic view of dicks in general because of it, and so even fairly hot dicks don't much turn me on, because well... THEY NEED TO BE ATTACHED TO MEN I ALSO FIND HOT, and as it turns out, I can be pretty picky about that.
BUT SINCE YOU ALLEGEDLY WANT ME TO TALK ABOUT INTRODUCING NEW FRIENDS, I'LL TAKE A MOMENT TO DO THAT TOO.
I love introducing people to people I think they might like. It's not like this is a hobby of mine, and so it's not like I'm on the hunt, trying to "make matches" amongst people who I think would be good as friends. But sometimes it so happens that someone I know seems to share interests with someone else I know, and even if I'm not necessarily a close friend to either party, I don't mind pointing people out to one another, and telling them they should be friends. Probably this is mostly because I'm just shameless like that, but I think it's also because more and more, I find myself being friends with people who mostly have a positive outlook on life, or who at least have a lot of fun interests they follow as a way to make their life better. And so, for instance, when introducing you to Daeva, I think a lot of people would be reluctant to take "you're both Italian and you both love fannish things, and Haruna," as a reason to introduce you to each other, but it was really more than that. It' was just a feeling I had, that you two shared enough in common that you'd get along well with each other. I had no expectations that you'd become as close as you have, but it makes me really happy that happened: mostly I just figured out that no matter what, you'd end up being good to each other, and so no harm could possibly come from it, so why not?
I'M KIND OF CAREFREE LIKE THAT, YOU SEE. So I wish I could say I had some deep and involved process by which I decide to introduce people to each other, but it's not like that. XDD
...
NEXT, I will be addressing tomoe_daeva's five things. But before that, I have some fanfic I need to work on. So hold on Daeva... I have not forgotten! Just let me write some Akiharu fic first! Although you might want to pick something other than shogi since um... I actually don't know anything about shogi.