Oh hi, thanks for checking in...I'm still a piece of garbage

Feb. 6th, 2017 09:35 pm
nanakah: (thumbs up)
 It's been a while!

The reason I'm here...is to vent about CLAMP and get away from my everyday vet school stress, of course. Damn, don't go into vet school unless you're absolutely sure you'll love it. Serious advice, graduating is tenfold worse than getting in. Time goes by in a flash whenever I'm working at the clinic though, the fluff balls sure keep you going...you about fall apart once you get home though, it's super draining! But I can't think of myself doing anything else besides something language related or cinema and art of animation, really...Maybe I'll go for one of those when my old bones can't take holding up Boxers, smelling chicken cadavers  and trying to put IV's on crazy cats anymore.

Anyway.

HOLiC Rei is absolute madness right now. Ohkawa, why do you toy with me so. Apparently we get to see Yuuko choking (Totally-Not) Zashiki Warashi...calm down Queen, no need to fight over the shopkeeper, you have absolutely no competition lol But really, the whole thing reeks of some higher up trying to lure Watanuki. I'm curious whether his better judgment as an "adult"  will let him see through that, or if Yuuko's image will be enough to throw him for a loop...


I'm super nostalgic for CLAMP stuff lately, I'd been away for awhile because I was mad CCS was turning out to feel like a cash-grab while HOLiC got delayed for months, but I'm glad both series seem to be going somewhere now.  Aaah, I wish I could write drabbles or something...I can get away with my ESL for posts, conversations and such but I don't think my writing has a flow as good as a native's...though I've never written much in portuguese either. Maybe I should read actual books more. I'd been craving for a re-read of Howl's Moving Castle, maybe I should go for it. (YEAH RIGHT WHAT ABOUT THAT SURGERY EXAM COMING UP -sigh-).

I wanna ramble about HOLiC shipping but that probably begs for another post...

Oh, I somehow got involved with Kuzu no Honkai. The animation is great, I've binge-read the manga too. Downside is that I don't really have a favorite character, but the storytelling is really good and the anime's soundtrack is amazing...as expected of Lerche.

 
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in which a sidenote actually became an entire entry

Jan. 30th, 2016 09:56 pm
nanakah: (watanuki)
I had way too much fun today browsing LJ for old TRC and holic theories, raging and shenanigans. I won't be the black sheep and say I'm completely satisfied with how things turned out, but then again I can't really identify with the several people that dropped out of the fandom during the big HOLIC to Rou/TRC finale abyss. Rather the contrary, it was the change brought by it that got me to come back and care again.

Many disliked Watanuki's characterization from there on for "in no way being like him at all/what did they do my son" or "throwing 200 chapters worth of development outta the window" just like he once was? lol sorry which I can't really agree with. Sure, it was a big shock at first (a time skip was involved after all) but I came to love it, specially somewhere along the seven year gap (As in, he was finally more comfortable in his shop keeper shoes, less brooding, messing up less as far as hurting himself went) I thought he was so great, and everything I thought holic was leading up to. Wasn't holic always filled with Watanuki frowning at Yuuko and despairing at the thought that she somehow knew what was in store for his future, or Haruka seemingly preparing him saying there was a "grand path ahead" or, you know, what about Yuuko always being so set on explaining the clockwork of the shop to him, even though that seemed so useless and against the cryptic nature of her character back then?

I don't know, I get a special kind of aggravated whenever I read "Watanuki failed to do everything Yuuko tried to teach him!!!!11!11", because holic's appeal to me in the first place was defending broken aesops and bringing about the relativity of morals, happiness and human behavior in general (By which I mean, idk why people still try reading Yuuko through stuff like "she must be so mad at his decision!!!" when we're talking about a woman that constantly encouraged people on doing whatever the hell they feel like if that's what they truly desire, as long as they were aware of the consequences. Why on earth would she condemn Watanuki for staying in the shop? Yes, she cared about Watanuki, she wouldn't let him go on his merry way of offing himself, and in fact she put effort towards not letting him do so by surrounding him with people to change him. But that doesn't mean she taught him not to follow his heart.)

Damn, Watanuki lived off his days nurturing his powers in order to take care of Doumeki, Kohane, Himawari and everyone he cared about. This was literally spelled out in the Jorogumo chapter in Rou. His price to meet Yuuko again was staying in the shop, the whole becoming the shop *keeper* was his own decision to make himself useful to others. In the end, Yuuko's ultimate lesson to him - and to everyone else - was "Follow your heart's true wish with decision and sincerity". It -is- what he did. The fandom is kinda dead nowadays, but I'd love to discuss this at length with someone. I really can't fathom why his staying the shop for the majority of the fandom boils down to "he failed to learn, he abandoned his friends, poor Yuuko" because that's not how it went.

As fun as it was in the old school days, I never expected Wata to stay spazzy forever (much of it derived from his, very much justified, paranoia of being followed around by spirits that wanted him dead) and I love how he turned out. Down to the cynicism and sneakyness he developed, he is still very much Watanuki, bending the rules of the shop far more than he should for the children that come by his shop because he is kind and cares about others - people, spirits, whatever comes. The pinacle of that is probably his Drug&Drop cameo, in which he has a "such are humans" attitude we had never seen quite so strongly before...but then again, it makes sense after all he has seen doesn't it? I for one think his personality fits the shop restraints better than Yuuko's ever did, she is such a free spirit and a "moved by boredom" type of character that it did always come off as odd to me why would she stay in a single place doing what she did. I guess I want to see her free, or see what both of them being together *and* free would be like. Reading the Soel and Larg book and how she loved having stray cats and dogs on her porch had me forever bitter by realizing that in the HOLIC verse the shop was technically "not there" so that sort of thing could never happen again...it is hurtful to have someone like her caged away, even if she did get to have more mobility than Watanuki does nowadays.

TL;DR I loved Watanuki in HOLiC and I love him now even more as shop keeper. Yes, there is some confusion and questionable writing on CLAMP's end. His character still is A+ to me. The one thing I wanted from the day we learned his wish of "not wanting to see spirits any more" was for things to develop in a direction that the "other world" no longer terrified and threatened him, but rather expanded his world and became part of him, and indeed that's what we got in the long run.

Whooo, that went on for longer than I expected. I guess I'll split my actual speculation on what's next for Rei into a separate post altogether. Guess that's what happens when you bottle up the despair CLAMP brings.
  • Current Mood: nostalgic
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In which I talk about my holic OTP - The Butterfly and the Bird

Dec. 31st, 2015 11:31 pm
nanakah: (Default)
Eh, I keep trying to write a long winded post on how much I love my holic OTP but I always end up tragically hitting the back button or doing something stupid that winds up erasing all my work, so I guess it's better to be brief and just pour my heart out.

I lovelove Yuuko/Watanuki, I wish more people would ship it or at least that it was more respected within the fandom, as it seems many people are quick to shoot it down with "But she is his mother figure!!!!".

I used to, but no longer see DouWata as romantic, but as Watanuki and Doumeki caring deeply and understanding each other as true friends. The pairing fans are both more numerous and more vocal, but i've also seem quite a few shippers for YuuWata.

I dunno, I think it's so very interesting that to Doumeki, Yuuko was always that off-putting, weird figure that seemed to be all Watanuki ever had to talk about, yet he slowly learned to trust her to help his friend (something that took many years for either of them to admit), and now he can't bring himself to make Watanuki lose something that is so important to him.

In the end, I think CLAMP's works are always about love. It's not like a pairing being weird to the reader's eye or unconventional (for any, and I do mean any, societal convention) has ever stopped them, so I don't know why so many people resist so much to recognizing YuuWata as a ship. I guess time will clear it up, but regardless, I'll always love their dynamic most. 

The thing that sells it to me is how fond they are of each other, how it stems from little things. One of my favorite parallels is when Sakura in Tsubasa is telling Tomoyo what The Dimension Witch is like; "She is an adult and a really beautiful person". And then we have Watanuki in a true emotional rollercoster throught the series, going from "She is a charlatan that tricks people with her poisonous fangs" to "She drinks a lot! She's selfish! She's lazy! She has no shame! But...I'm glad I met her." and the final pang "In this world, I lived out the time of my life that I was happiest. When I still didn't know what exactly what I was. And most importantly...Yuuko-san, It was...when you were around."

Sure, I'm not Ohkawa to put a final world on what Watanuki and Yuuko's relationship is supposed to be for sure. Her story telling style is "Look at it and tell me what you think", after all. Well, my gut feeling has always told me there was more than met the eye. Rou and Rei gone by (the latter almost, but will be quite soon), I'll say, damn, he loves her more than anything and I'm dying to know what she would think of it without the shackles of a foretold role she would have to play that made her basically secretly distance herself from others because she knew had to be gone when the time came.

I love them together for who they are, I am dead certain Watanuki loves Yuuko far more than a teacher or motherly figure specially in retrospect, now that he knows much more than he used to and looks back. His telling Shaoran that he seriously had to resist throwing everything up to the air and being with Yuuko and how he'd like to do so while regaining his current memories (Hint hint - which I strongly believe not only to be his new knowledge, but also his feelings for Yuuko that matured and changed over her absence).

I'm dying to see Watanuki and Yuuko together again, if only being an oddball duo in that one shop that helps out the CLAMPverse children in need.  It's all I want, and I hope from the bottom of my heart that it can happen somehow.

I rarely ever see people talking about this pairing, and when I do I feel really really happy, so I hope someone that ships it comes across this post too :') We can cry over it together, comrade.

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