High Seas App

[Name]: Love
[Age]: 27
[Contacts]:
♦ DW: demonia
♦ AIM: Demonia105
♦ Plurk: demonia
[Timezone]: -5GMT
[Other Characters]: N/A



[Name]: Matsuoka, Gou
[Canon]: Free!
[Age]: 15
[Gender]: Female
[Canon Point]: Post series

[History]: Wiki link has a bit, but it's more plot involvement than history. So I'll just dive in here. When Gou was little, her dad died when working on a fishing boat when a typhoon had hit. She was young enough that all Gou really remembers is her mom and brother. So if she didn't stick to his side before, it definitely happened from then on. A good portion of her childhood was watching Rin swim and work towards his dream (which was their father's,) and seeing how he was with each of the teams he'd been on. Which includes the Iwatobi swim club, where Rin seemed to be happiest. Then, to continue his dream, Rin went to Australia.

Really, Gou's life was very normal, despite having a goal-driven shark for a brother. Not having a father didn't really affect her, probably because everyone else didn't put that sort of past as some sort of burden or constant reminder. In school, she took very girly extracurricular activities and eventually started to insist on being called Kou, as her name was very masculine and had led to teasing and various rumors. So while trying to show that she's nowhere near as boyish as her name, Gou saw how Rin kept changing whenever he returned from Australia. How he'd gotten more withdrawn and kind of a jerk.

Let's fastforward to when the series actually starts. She enrolls in to Iwatobi High, has Nagisa in the same year as herself and sees Makoto and Haruka on the school grounds. With this and finding out that the building, where the guys used to practice, is to be torn down, an idea comes to mind so that Rin's less of a miserable ball of resentment and frustration. Of course that plan came to mind rather easily when she was eavesdropping on the boys, but it was formulated pretty fast as she texted Rin about the building almost right away.

From this point, Gou acts to keep things moving so that they would get to swim with Rin again, and maybe spark a bit of his old self back to life. She joins the Iwatobi Swim Club as a manager, fully dedicating herself to helping and improving the team. It must be a family trait with how much energy is put in to achieving a goal; Gou just didn't have to go to Australia and destroy her spirit to achieve this one. Despite the rumors and comments coming up about how her hanging around the boys is 'fitting to her name,' Gou connects with Samezuka to put together a practice (so that Rin could see the team,) and makes sure that everything is put into place so they were ready for anything coming up. Training regimens, making sure things were in place and even looking on other teams so Haruka, Makoto, Nagisa and Rei were as prepared for their individual heats.

How she manages to do this while also being in the Calligraphy club, maintaining at least one friendship that doesn't involve the club, staring and studying all the muscle mags and stalking her brother no one knows. Just that she manages to put in this much energy towards multiple goals and be more successful in it than Rin focusing on his singular dream of being good enough to get on an Olympics team. So when regionals hits and Rin's suddenly swimming with the boys in the relay, she finally gets to see that major goal realized. Which means more joint practices and getting to see Rin more often and even at Iwatobi high.

[Personality]: There are a few major archetypes seen in Gou's personality. Let's start with one part that a portion of the fandom gets their panties in a twist over; the selective preference over wanting to be called Kou instead. She shares a similar fate to the boys in having a name more suited for someone of the opposite sex. As it's always led to comments of her actions being 'suited for how your name is,' there's a desire for people to see that she is a girl. It's not really about the name; Rin can call her Gou without problem and Seijuuro only gets in trouble when adding -kun to the name. There's no thought of how boyish the name is, and they've always just seen her as a girl. It's primarily around classmates, including Nagisa, as that's where she hears the comments about her name meaning she's suitable to being boyish, and it simply is respected by the others on the team. To fight the comments she does more than insist on the feminine reading of the name; this goes a lot further with taking up hobbies and taking actions on what a girl her age should and shouldn't be doing. Whether it's ogling muscles, venturing into her brother's room at an all boy's academy, or the subject of dating.

Even Rin's commented on what Gou should and shouldn't be doing as a girl in her freshman year. This isn't unusual, at least not to Gou! The siblings were a large part of each other's lives, and even if Rin had pictures of her all around his room, she figured it was only normal to care for his 'precious little sister' with pictures and also subscribing to the magazine she buys. Unfortunately this was all in Seijuuro's room, so all the fondness and 'normality' of these actions went right out the window. Because all Gou had was her mother, grandmother and brother, he was a huge part of her life. As a kid she practically clung to him, and when seeing how he changed from being in Australia it was obvious that something needed to be done. Which is why she took actions to put her brother back together. It's the main reason why she volunteered to be the swim team's manager- so that she could find a way to get everyone to swim together again and hope that brings back a bit of how her brother used to be; flashy, friendly and energetic. When deciding to do something however, Gou makes sure to do it properly and with full dedication. Becoming the manager didn't just mean working to link the two for one purpose; she researched other teams, training regimens and worked hard to put together joint practices. She did everything a manager should do to improve and motivate the team, including sorting the teammates priorities on where they should focus attentions. Putting forth all her energy and properly dedicating herself is a bit of a family trait. Rin just destroyed and focused on things too negatively after frustrations built up while Gou picked herself up at each speedbump and took a positive step each time.

The dedication isn't just towards her brother and the team, but there's the actions from her fascination with muscles. Who knows if it's because she always saw the boys swimming, or because of a picture of their father, but Gou has a serious love for muscles. It's a priority when checking on the opposing teams and a bit of a distraction when the boys are shirtless (at least in the beginning.) It's not a surface attraction due to aesthetics either. She buys Muscle Monthly, studies and knows the names of (probably) all of the human muscles and can watch someone and take complete and accurate notes about their development. Aside from a notebook, this was also how she saw that Rei could do well on the team (which he was, after actually learning how to swim.)

Despite Gou growing up without a father, having a bipedal shark, who wrecked his spirit in Australia, for a brother and hanging around the guys in Iwatobi, she's rather normal. She can fangirl over shirtless muscular boys, but it's an effect that does manage to diminish the more she's around that muscular person into a more quiet appreciation. The brother complex doesn't completely encompass everything at a visible level. She has hobbies, interests and friends that go outside the swim club and members. There's a primarily positive outlook on everything, without dismissing times when it's better to be stern or to turn up the pressure rather than getting complacent and thinking 'oh, it'll all work out.' She's a positive teenaged girl that likes to enjoy her life, but appreciates hard work and having some pressure on one's goals.

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