you're the heart and soul

[wakeupnew]

Screen Actors Guild awards today! I love awards season. I mean, I love it less after the awards that include TV are over with, because I just do not enjoy movies the way that I enjoy television, but DRUNK CELEBRITIES! DRESSES! AWESOME! I am currently frantically cleaning/baking to try to get my daily responsibilities finished before the red carpet starts at six o'clock.

(EDIT: Obviously, I did not finish this post before the red carpet started! Loved Mila Kunis's dress, was indifferent to or disliked pretty much everyone else's fashion choices, and no one that I was rooting for won anything, except the cast of Modern Family, who I was really only half-rooting for. Man, it is a boring awards show season.)

I am currently writing fic. I was supposed to be writing my kurt_blaine exchange fic, and I will, but I somehow got distracted and now have, like, 6000 work-in-progress words of the-glee-club-goes-to-homecoming. Why do I always do this? I always do this.

Day 01 - Your favorite male character
Day 02 - Your favorite female character
Day 03 - Your favorite group performance
Day 04 - Your favorite solo
Day 05 - Your favorite duet
Day 06 - Your favorite Rachel/Finn moment
Day 07 - Your favorite Finn-Kurt moment
Day 08 - Your favorite Quinn/Puck moment
Day 09 - Your favorite Kurt-Mercedes moment
Day 10 - Your favorite Santana/Brittany moment
Day 11 - Your favorite Sue Sylvester moment
Day 12 - The couple you ship the MOST
Day 13 - A scene/moment that pissed you off
Day 14 - A scene/moment that made you cry
Day 15 - A scene/moment that made you happy
Day 16 - Your favorite episode
Day 17 - Your least favorite episode
Day 18 - Your least favorite character
Day 19 - Your least favorite performance
Day 20 - Your favorite quote
Day 21 - Your favorite guest-star
Day 22 - Your least favorite guest-star
Day 23 - The character you most relate to
Day 24 - The character you would like to hear/see more of
Day 25 - Something that happened you wish hadn’t
Day 26 - Something that hadn’t happened but you wish had
Day 27 - Your idea for a future Glee episode
Day 28 - Your idea for a future Glee character
Day 29 - Your idea for a future Glee performance
Day 30 - Whatever tickles your fancy

I feel like everyone is going to expect me to say Kurt, but honestly, Kurt is, like, the easiest character for me to take out of the running on this one. He is my favorite forever, it is true, but pretty much the only thing we have in common is being capital g gay, and even then, aside from supportive families, we have had vastly different queer experiences. Mostly, today's question comes down to: Rachel Berry vs. Tina Cohen-Chang vs. Emma Pillsbury. Really, I think a combination of all three would be the most accurate. Emma's neuroses/awkwardness and her well-meaningness combined with Tina's early shyness and reluctance to be noticed, and Rachel's loneliness and bombastic need to be the best and to be liked. (Please note that I'm mostly talking about high school me; I'd like to think that I've grown out of most of this. Well, besides the awkwardness. That is all me.)

But if I had to pick one of these three characters...



The character you most relate to: Rachel Berry
In high school, I was an officer in the Spanish Club, the Key Club, and the History Club, and was a part of the Drama Club and our chapter of Amnesty International. I was in National Honor Society, the jazz band, the marching band, the wind ensemble, I ran cross country, and I did the musical. This was not because I genuinely wanted to be in most of these clubs, but because I felt that I needed them to pad my college applications. I was relentlessly, terrifyingly driven; B's were not good enough. I was legitimately disappointed to graduate eighth in my class. I pined after a tall goofball athlete with a heart of gold (if I had thought of chasing him around a piano while singing, I would have seriously considered it), and I dreamed of getting out of my hometown and striking it big. I felt like no one noticed me (but at the same time, I wanted to dive under desks when people did notice me, which is why I mentioned season 1 Tina up above), and I had a seriously pathological need to be liked. I felt personally insulted every time I auditioned for a role and didn't receive a lead. Other people's talent threatened me. I was lonely all the time despite having friends, felt misunderstood, and was socially desperate.

So really, when it comes down to the "which character do you most relate to?" question, the answer is pretty easy. For the record, I was obnoxious, but nowhere near as ridiculous or heinous as Rachel is, and the following ficlet does not at all represent my high school career! Rachel reminds me of high school me, but much unhappier and dialed up way the hell past 11.

(I am so glad we're almost on to the speculative meme questions where I get to go totally off the map and make up whatever the hell I want. I love Kurt and Rachel, but I am SO TIRED OF WRITING ABOUT THEM.)

---

Rachel spends her days sticking her arm straight up in the air in class, her afternoons watching Mr. Ryerson give solo after solo to Hank Saunders, and her evenings singing in front of her camera.

She focuses on the solos in Glee Club, because if she does that, she doesn't have to think about the fact that teachers don't call on her unless nobody else will raise their hand; that she eats her lunch alone in the library; that she spends all day every day watching her fellow students laugh and chatter and try to suck each others' faces off in the halls, and no one is willing to be seen even exchanging words with her.

Rachel may not be able to force people to be friendly, but she can find more effective leadership for the Glee Club; leadership that won't be blinded by favoritism and unacceptable behavior, and that will take the full spectrum of available talent into account.

So she goes to Principal Figgins, sobbing about the in actuality very inappropriate touching that she saw in the chorus room (and if she plays it up a little bit, there's nothing wrong with that), and she gets Sandy Ryerson fired. She wasn't counting on everyone knowing that it was her, and she certainly wasn't counting on a traumatized Hank transferring and everyone else quitting the Glee Club.

Rachel finds a football star and a Cheerio making out against her locker in the morning, and they won't even move enough for her to get to her textbooks; Noah Puckerman hits her with a slushie to the face when she dares to venture into the cafeteria at lunch; Jenny Eller calls her a troll in Honors Chemistry and Mr. Addison doesn't say a word about it; and when she stops in Principal Figgins's office after school, she finds that not a single faculty member has been willing to step up to take over as the Glee Club adviser yet.

Rachel goes home that night and records the fiercest, most emotionally compelling rendition of "People" that she has ever sung.

When she checks her MySpace comments in the morning, they all say that she should gargle with forks or throw herself in front of a short bus.

Comments

[kindness_says]

I don't know whether to be like, oh, RACH, or, oh, YOU.

This is so interesting to me.

I mean that in a totally affectionate way. Except, you probably would've scared me if we'd gone to high school together. Even if we'd been the same age. Possibly even if you'd been younger. x_x

[wakeupnew]

hahaha, I was not nearly as bad as I probably made myself sound by listing all of my Rachel-like qualities together, but I was very self-centered and too hard on myself! I mostly kept that stuff to myself, though, unlike Rachel. I was very shy. If we'd gone to high school together, you probably wouldn't have known who I was, much less to be afraid of my relentless drive!

[kindness_says]

I don't know...between being awkward and musical/theatre/honors classes, I am pretty sure I would have known you. The musical/theatre bit pretty much clinches it even if we weren't the same age (although, I'm not sure if you would have gotten in at my school, if you were equally awkwardpants in auditions <33333). And your other stuff, we would have at least had mutual friendquaintances. I can actually almost picture you at your possible lunch tables. XD Although it's true that then I probably wouldn't have been afraid of you in non-academic contexts, and I might not have known you were crazy. Although, we might have been friends! In which case...I guess I might have known you were psycho, but maybe I wouldn't have been afraid of you. <3

(...No, I would've been, a little. I have a very troubled relationship with winning and losing, and particularly in high school had a very complicated trajectory with caring about my grades, and caring about caring about my grades, and other people caring about my grades ("WHAT DID YOU GET???" oh my god, I hated that; I used to lie to one particular friendquaintance, who is wonderful btw - by the end of high school that trait of his could totally be laughed over - because I didn't want him to sulk if I did better), etc. People who were really driven about school/college/grades, I think made me feel simultaneously impressed, intimidated, ashamed, and superior. Because I was always good at school, but high school was when theatre ate my life, and I ended up doing pretty well in the end, but in retrospect I'm like, "HOW???" and basically I just didn't sleep. Ugh, horrible. Possibly as a result, I did almost nothing but sleep my first year of college.

ANYWAY, this is all to be like, OH CUTTHROAT COMPETITION (between actors or classmates), HOW YOU FRIGHTEN ME. I mean, I think it frightens me less than it used to - it was probably at least half being just terrified of everyone, period, for no apparent reason - but sometimes I think about how as a kid I didn't like to play games much because I didn't like winning OR losing and I'm just like, do I really want to go to medical school? MAYBE NOT SO MUCH.)

[kindness_says]

Wow, what a jumbled message, sorry; I just reread it.

[littledust.livejournal.com]

RACHEL ;_____; I love that your little ficlet displays both the way Rachel sets herself up for social failure and the total awfulness of high school that is NOT her fault.

Were we the same person in high school? I think we were the same person in high school. I didn't achieve total extracurricular overload until college, though.

ETA: Oh yes, and I am also having this problem where I write about Kurt and Rachel all the time for the meme! I've already planned my answers out for the 30 days, because when school kicks into high gear, I will have no time for anything.

[wakeupnew]

Yay, that was the goal! :D

Maybe we were! I completely burned myself out in high school. I was really sick my first semester of college, and by the time I finally recovered, I realized that I enjoyed not doing anything besides going to class, hanging out with my friends, and doing my pansy-ass easy work-study job, so I haven't actually done any extracurricular activities since I was a senior in high school.

(Hahaha, I had to plot out my last bunch of days ahead of time, because otherwise, I was going to wind up wanting to use the same answers for different days, and that's boring!)

[mercuriazs.livejournal.com]

I realize I don't really identify with anyone from Glee. :O

But once again, A+ fic! And I love reading musings on high-school-you. I like musings.

[wakeupnew]

Haha, I really don't either! I recognize some of my most unflattering/terrifying high school tendencies in Rachel, and a bit also in Emma and Tina, but if I had to name a character who I can actually relate to now ... not so much! Thanks! ♥