omg!!! the thing abt nanago is that it stands at the center of a lot of intersecting tropes i really love: tsundere x clingy yapper, person who looks cold but is actually warm and loving x guy who looks lackadaisical and chill but can be Monstrous when enraged, two fundamentally damaged and traumatized people who still choose to love and be loved anyway, #TeamParents to a group of wayward children, i could go on and on and on.

i also actually do enjoy the power differential between them, if only because it's a facet of their identities that makes their relationship more interesting. gojo's the strongest sorcerer but still thought of nanami as someone who could survive anything. nanami is Very Aware of gojo's status but then treats him like a person anyway. (and i don't wanna hear anything about nanami throwing gojo's power in his face when they were in high school, he was a freshly traumatized teen processing the death of his friend. he very obviously doesn't think that way by the main timeline of the story.)

it's a Fascinating interplay of belief and humanity; gojo has such Strong belief in nanami even though by everyone's metric, he's a weaker sorcerer than gojo. nanami looks at gojo and sees his humanity, first and foremost, in all of its annoying glory.

they're also just really funny together man like idk KLSHDFLKHSFD nanami cuts gojo down to size, gojo needles him anyway. and i think their more lighthearted dynamic belies the depth of trust, too. like i will never let anyone forget that gojo Followed nanami to hokkaido to talk to him about yuuji, and that gojo asking him to look after yuuji was a very Dangerous thing to ask for, for both him and nanami. gojo trusted him enough to do that, and nanami trusted gojo enough to accept.

i think it's also that gojo's naturally drawn towards people who have a lot of compassion. which really tracks since he's a guy who's been somewhat alienated all his life, reduced to a weapon or a pawn in some larger game of power. even as (and also directly because of the fact that he's) the strongest sorcerer and the head of his own clan, he's still extremely restricted and dehumanized.

nanami on the other hand is unencumbered in those ways. he hasn't the strong jujutsu lineage, was raised with a normal home life, and although he might be stoic, he has a deeply empathetic and caring nature. nanami Understands people and he Cares about them. and i think that gojo, whose upbringing was as unconventional, impersonal, and sheltered as could be, just can't help but be attracted to that energy. i mean, it would explain why nanami's there every single time gojo and the kids hang out (the promo materials/additional illustrations of them taking the 1st and 2nd years to the beach or to the store); gojo isn't a Great teacher and doesn't really know how to relate to/interact with people much (altho he's marginally better now as an adult), but nanami being there makes it easier to be an adult.

so yeah!!!! i just really REALLY like the people they turn into when they're around each other.

yeah see this is where the difference in interpretation comes in i think HASDHALDSKH i have never once seen stsg as doomed because "doomed" suggests a removal of agency. that there was no way they could've escaped their fate. and you're right, i Do enjoy stories where the couple is doomed (if they're done well). but i think it's a disservice to both geto and gojo to assume that their relationship was in any way shape or form doomed, when they both made active choices that lead to the dissolution of their friendship.

like, in my opinion, a Huge part of what makes these characters interesting as individuals IS their agency and what they choose to do with. gojo, with his complex, limited agency (living with both the freedom and restriction of being the strongest), deciding to not give up on humanity, to fight on behalf of the weak, to teach and guide young sorcerers to be different from him and the generation that raised him. geto becoming an extremist, putting himself on the warpath against all those he deemed "lesser", living for and loving the close circle he formed that fit his supposed ideal of perfect existence. HECK, i'd argue that geto's use of his agency earlier in his life is what makes his eventual LACK of it via kenjaku so poignant.

i welcome the argument that their batch As A Whole was doomed, in the sense that they were the least-equipped to deal with everything that they had to deal with and the reasons are all rooted in things they couldn't control. i welcome the argument that gojo himself is a doomed character, even, although i honestly think his eventual fate is more of a result of poor writing decisions than anything else. but like. these two, as a Duo, being doomed, i don't see that at all.

the entire point of their friendship breakdown is that they both made Entirely Different Choices and it lead to an irreparable rift. they went through the same, doomed mission (again, this is the only thing i can see being doomed), came out of it with completely different outlooks, and they Acted on those outlooks. geto left to become a curse user and gojo stayed to become a teacher. those are Choices They Made!!!!!

so yeah, i don't like this ship, but i also just never considered it doomed yaoi either. you can like what you like anonnie, and i can like what i like. let's live peacefully etc etc.

THIS ISN'T A WEIRD QUESTION THIS IS FUN!!! and okay the stuff they normally wear to train are:

jeonghan: a thermal turtleneck layered with The Biggest Shirt You've Ever Seen tucked into your standard athletic pants. he wears leg warmers off-ice while he's stretching and warming up but he doesn't like how they feel once he starts skating (he absolutely tried to skate with them on Once and Precisely Once and it was a sensory nightmare he can't explain to anyone).

joshua: under armour athletic tops (he'd be like yuzu where they'd be labeled with his name) and men's dance tights underneath THICKKKKK fleece-lined sweatpants. he wears gloves a lot, too. (he keeps a pair in his duffle for jeonghan because he always forgets his.)