loquatenjoyer69

[loquatenjoyer69]

I wish you could see it, too

[loquatenjoyer69]

I CRODE

[loquatenjoyer69]

if you play the opening wrong, the game is already lost.

[loquatenjoyer69]

resolving loquats. badly

if i had more time i would have written a shorter letter. sorry

loquats the arc of threes - miharu with its three guardians, the two exorcists and their tag-along marriage counselor natsume, three chapters, etc etc

reading it for years ive been stuck on how none of the parallels resolve cleanly. comparisons are drawable between just about every character and every story element, but none really make a straight line to a neat conclusion.

most roadblocky to me is matoba's similarity to both masakiyo and masakiyo's would-be youkai companion. what does it mean to compare him to both the man shutting himself off from his desires and the being trying (unsuccessfully) to reach out and fulfill them? what does the actual point of miharu as an arc boil down to and why does it need to be so obfuscatory?

and then earlier this year unrelatedly i read the seminal text on metaphoric triangulation and romantic horniness. and went aha. lol. it didnt actually help me it just unleashed me but its been fun.

i still dont have it together enough to do my dream of untangling every single connection we've all been drilling into for years all in one place. i still think if i could i could unlock midorikawa's brain. but i can lay out

(dont try too hard to read these)

[a square diagram messily laying out relationships between masakiyo, the interfering youkai, matoba, and the mihashira (miharu's three guardians), the square then broken along the diagonal into two triangles showing how matoba identifies with both masakiyo and the youkai, and both of them displace a desire of theirs onto the youkai and the mihashira respectively]

[two triangles - 1. the identification/desire relationship between masakiyo, his beloved, and the interfering youkai, all able to be cast as matoba 2. the same between matoba, mihashira, and an interchangeable miharu/natori]

[two triangles showing unresolved/unbalanced relationships between 1. yorishima, matoba, and natori and 2. matoba, natori, and loquats]

at this point i started getting incoherent. and then i died for ten million years from Job

but what im still trying to work towards. is that matoba - who sits on the I Hate My Life Bench with masakiyo (with whom he shares a few on-the-nose name connections to really hammer it home), has long black hair and one eye like the youkai who wants someone stubbornly alone on their own path, is jealous of the mihashira's naive commitment to obsolete promises - has a link to basically every story element that represents Unfulfilled Desire.

everything that could mean to him in this arc - quitting exorcism, keeping promises, being the most capable vs relying on others, shouldering a legacy, enjoying a loquat - remains ambiguous. but he Wants. strongly enough that his usual mask keeps slipping bc he's having to think about it. he's The Wanterrrrrr.

and natori, well,

[spreadsheet with three categories of question marked relationship to each other - subjects with displaced desire (teen seiji, hiiragi, yorishima, touko), objects (all natori), and displaced objects (all loquats)]

well he's just in hot demand. what's he do in this arc? people want relationships with him, and the means they have available to get that is through the available loquats picking opportunity. he is. the universal object of desire. he's swept along with the flow for all the setup to this arc more than he's really an Actor (lol) in it.

(and do they both, to complete the triangle, make natsume the universal Means of Resolution, like how everyone uses loquats to get natori? don't involve natsume in your exorcist business even tho i do that, but if he was here he could solve everything for us, and now he's gonna get in the middle of our loquats reminiscing unbeknownst to both of us for unclear reasons,,, well he doesnt really solve anything for them. concretely. but he does. with his 90 chapters of development with both of them. serve as a wedge to open up some space in their closed-off relationship.)

but so anyways. matoba the wanter and natori the object to want. simple, even if all matoba wants, if he can admit it, is to enjoy a loquat with a peer and nothing more. so who's driving this car and spinning it round and round in unresolvable metaphors. midorikawa youre just making it more tragically gay by making it plausibly deniable.

but in the arc of Unfulfilled Desire That Is Also Self-Inflicted - the foolish mihashira could just stop showing up don't they know, the youkai could just go enjoy the freedom it's been given, miharu could just let his beloved share his burden - he can't admit it. he lets all the metaphors get all tangled and tangled and tangled because he's caught in between his desires for connection and withdrawal and isn't able or willing to resolve that tension himself.

but its NOT the arc of repeated cycles - matoba would let himself get stuck there, but natori in the backhalf is the one to take action to break us out. by offering his shoulder. over and over and over. and then over and over in every arc after but lets not talk about that.

so natori makes it simple again. and what we get when its simple is just direct one-to-one visual parallels of matoba and masakiyo. and what we get when this gets animated is an extra scene of masakiyo with his (romantic) beloved, pushing her away (romantically), refusing to let anyone's support in or any of his (romantic) desires be fulfilled (he didnt even succeed at keeping his house alive!!!! lol common cringefail exorcist behavior). and what we end the arc on is matoba... made up of twenty layers of self-denial... not quite able to accept it... but paralyzed by not being able to reject natori's help anymore

which is. mwah. chefs kiss beautiful incremental excruciating not-progress. makes a man want to affect the trout population

[loquatenjoyer69]

what if i was glad you were obscured from my view because even if i cant bridge the distance between us the thought that i might understand you better than i'd expected to hurts far too much to think about

vs.

what if i tried in a small secret moment while you were sleeping and couldnt see me to see the world through your eyes in hopes it could help me understand you and maybe even bridge the distance between us

[loquatenjoyer69]

This panel has been stuck in my brain for weeks

[loquatenjoyer69]

Loquat nails!!! I didn't get the chance to take a picture yesterday so here they are 🥳

[loquatenjoyer69]

natsume yuujinchou s7e10 // natsume yuujinchou ch94 // richard siken - litany in which certain things are crossed out

[loquatenjoyer69]

something you’ve outgrown | a matoba seiji/natori shuuichi fanmix

[tracklist / lyrics below]

Keep reading

[loquatenjoyer69]

posting this with my dying breath

[loquatenjoyer69]

I feel like a bad guy, even though I haven't done anything. I feel sick. Am I doing something wrong?

[loquatenjoyer69]

Hmmm what designs should I do for loquat nails......

[loquatenjoyer69]

we need more divorcebaiting. how strongly can canon imply (without technically outright stating) that these two characters are bitterly, acrimoniously divorced? essential we explore this

[loquatenjoyer69]

my favorite ship dynamic is “these guys are not having sex with anyone but it would be really funny if they had sex with each other”

[loquatenjoyer69]

am i wearing the vintage silk for the loquats viewing? ....well, who can say...

[loquatenjoyer69]

He likes trains :)

[loquatenjoyer69]

happy loquats eve to all who celebrate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!