#OR THE ONE ABOUT ‘he’s your boyfriend? well then why is he *my* thematic parallel’ (or something like that)

[krakerjaksstuff]

I would say that the turning point of this shift, and consequently both of their characters, is the moment where Eugene saved Snafu on the Peleliu airfield.

@disastrouscanasta and I were actually talking about this, how sledgefu never would have worked if Snafu wasn’t as hardened from the war as he was and if Eugene was any further down his path of destruction. If Eugene wasn’t as innocent as he was, he never would have saved Snafu, let alone even look back for him. And if Snafu wasn’t as cynical, he wouldn’t have been as obsessed with saving Eugene’s humanity afterwards.

This is their turning point: Eugene only falls further and further while Snafu tries so desperately to keep up after him and lift him afloat. They turn together, and like you said, they become each other’s crutch. This is because Eugene saving Snafu was also the moment their humanity became irrevocably intertwined with each other. Snafu finds salvation through saving Eugene and Eugene, who has gone down a path of destruction, is saved by the man whom he saved due to his own good will. By saving Snafu in the airfield, Eugene inadvertently saved himself as well.

Somewhere along the story, their positions switched: Snafu used to be the veteran that lead and teach Sledge. Suddenly, he became the followers, attached to Eugene's every move.

When did that happen? I always find Sledge and Snafu's shifting dynamic so interesting. They go on the same path, yet their directions are at odd, stringing toward destruction (for Eugene) or salvation (for Snafu). They are each other's crutch, the compass's point, yet their respective role at some point reversed and they became each other.

[fatalism-and-villainy]

☕️ talk to me about your svsss thoughts?

Oh man, SVSSS. I will say it’s probably my least favourite of the MXTX canon, but it is extremely fun. Honestly, the aspect of it that had the biggest impact on me was all the parodic commentary on webnovel fandom and its forum dramas. Like that first Airplane chapter with the long comment thread on PIDW just had me cackling from the accuracy of it (especially the whole “if you don’t like it then WHY DON’T YOU WRITE YOUR OWN, let’s see if you could do it better” “I don’t need to be able to do it to know it sucks” exchange, like wow, you broke every argument in the comments down to its bare essentials). All the snarky (self-)deprecating commentary in the narration on tropes and genre expectations and the constructed nature of fiction were delightful. (Have I ever mentioned that I have a deep and abiding affection for MXTX as a personality? Because I really do.) 

I also love the fact that so much of it is a commentary on certain fandom attitudes - like Shen Yuan is very much the kind of entitled fan who harasses creators (the fact that Shang Qinghua has nightmares about Shen Yuan yelling at him about his writing is funny, but also uhhh... telling), but there’s also a lot of pushback against simplistic moral impulses on the part of fandom. The subplot about Shen Jiu’s backstory (which Shang Qinghua omitted because readers wanted him to be a straightforward villain) is VERY much a statement about how circumstances influence behaviour (and fandom’s reluctance to contend with that, imo). Same with how Shen Qingqiu’s perception of Luo Binghe is handled - he’s so fixated on the future of Luo Binghe’s character arc (although for understandable self-preservation reasons) that he doesn’t realize how much he’s altered Luo Binghe’s character by treating him better, and that character isn’t deterministic and set in stone. As I’ve mentioned, I love the fact that the effect of his presence on Luo Binghe is very much in the usual MXTX vein of “the presence of absence of attention and care make a drastic difference in someone’s character,” except in this case there’s an added layer of “and sometimes it will cause their gay awakening.”

Also, the whole setup in which this extremely straight hypermasculine genre would be better and deeper if it were gay? MASSIVE POWER MOVE. Especially with the presence of that girl in the aforementioned PIDW forum shyly being like “uhm I wrote some SQQ/LBH slash if anyone wants to read?” This book is truly a vindication for slash fangirls and villain lovers everywhere. 

I also loved both the leads. Shen Qingqiu is delightful as a nerdy, extremely online personality who unwittingly ends up as a curmudgeonly but beloved mentor to a bunch of teenagers. The way the disciples at Qing Jing Peak grow attached to him with him barely being aware of it was one of my favourite parts and I really wish there had been more focus on it! The scene with both Ning Yingying AND Ming Fan crying after he’s come back to life is extremely sweet. Luo Binghe is also very very good... putting on a tough and cool persona when he’s actually a massive emotional mess who’s desperate for affection and validation. (He’s SO eager to please during his disciple days. “Do you like my cooking? Do you? Do you??? Please let me do this for you every day pls pls pls.”) And he gets jerked around so much! You have to feel for him!  

That said, while I do love the two main characters, the central romance doesn’t really land for me. I really do like Luo Binghe’s adolescent crush on Shen Qingqiu, and him having his gay awakening through the first authority figure to ever be nice to him. And I also like the “omg so cool!!” response to Luo Binghe-the-character that Shen Yuan has that could totally be sublimated gay feelings (@coldwind-shiningstars raised the possibility that he had a crush on Luo Binghe while he was reading the book, which I could see). But the way they actually come together in-story.... there’s a lot of Shen Qingqiu capitulating to what Luo Binghe wants and appeasing him (including in the novel’s climax!) without much regard for what he himself wants and is comfortable with, and it’s uncomfy for me. You can convince him that he has worth and that you’re not going to abandon him while also setting boundaries with him, you know? 

And Shen Qingqiu’s internalized homophobia runs so deep that after awhile his freak-out responses stop being funny and just start being sad. Wei Wuxian’s closetedness in MDZS is at least expressed through him taking genuine joy in plausible deniability flirting with Lan Wangji. Shen Qingqiu on the other hand is just grossed out by Luo Binghe’s feelings for him so much of the time. The extras suggest that he is genuinely attracted to and attached to him, but is just suuuuper repressed, but that being the case, I just come away feeling as if he’s not remotely ready for a relationship at all until he’s worked himself out more. And I kind of want Luo Binghe to just try dating other people.... given the amount of women who were swooning over him, there’s got to be a bunch of potential boyfriends in this world for him as well. He could even have more than one at once (like, he was the protagonist of a harem novel! why’s he gotta become monogamous just because he’s gay now? XD)

So yeah, I loved the main characters but didn’t love the love story. And the setting and plot felt pretty empty for me - I had trouble getting attached to any of the characters or potential side pairings. The one exception to this is Shang Qinghua/Mobei-jun, which is delightful for its “scary demon falls for the first person to ever tell him off” feature, but wasn’t integrated into the story well enough for me to feel strong emotions about it - it’s relegated to extras, and that it feels at a thematic remove from the rest of the story. That is to say, obviously Shang Qinghua being gay and not being able to express that in his writing choices is thematically central to the story (which makes the relegated-to-extras backstory for him unfortunate), but the specifics of his relationship to Mobei-jun don’t feel to me to parallel or offer commentary on the central relationship. Though it’s entirely possible that I’ve missed something there and just haven’t read the right meta yet. 

So, overall - it has a lot of individual aspects that I really like, it’s very funny in a lot of places, and I really appreciate what it’s doing thematically and with its meta aspects, but as a whole, it’s not entirely satisfying to me. 

[bananaofswifts]

Your guide to the singer-songwriter’s surprise follow-up to Folklore.

By

CARL WILSON

When everything’s clicking for Taylor Swift, the risk is that she’s going to push it too far and overtax the public appetite. On “Mirrorball” from Folklore, she sings, with admirable self-knowledge, “I’ve never been a natural/ All I do is try, try, try.” So when I woke up yesterday to the news that at midnight she was going to repeat the trick she pulled off with Folklore in July—surprise-releasing an album of moody pop-folk songs remote-recorded in quarantine with Aaron Dessner of the National as well as her longtime producer Jack Antonoff—I was apprehensive. Would she trip back into the pattern of overexposure and backlash that happened between 1989 and Reputation?

Listening to the new Evermore, though, that doesn’t feel like such a threat. A better parallel might be to the “Side B” albums that Carly Rae Jepsen put out after both Emotion and Dedicated, springing simply out of the artist’s and her fans’ mutual enthusiasm. Or, closer to Swift’s own impulses here, publishing an author’s book of short stories soon after a successful novel. Lockdown has been a huge challenge for musicians in general, but it liberated Swift from the near-perpetual touring and publicity grind she’s been on since she was a teen, and from her sense of obligation to turn out music that revs up stadium crowds and radio programmers. Swift has always seemed most herself as the precociously talented songwriter; the pop-star side is where her try-hard, A-student awkwardness surfaces most. Quarantine came as a stretch of time to focus mainly on her maturing craft (she turns 31 on Sunday), to workshop and to woodshed. When Evermore was announced, she said that she and her collaborators—clearly mostly Dessner, who co-writes and/or co-produces all but one of these 15 songs—simply didn’t want to stop writing after Folklore.

This record further emphasizes her leap away from autobiography into songs that are either pure fictions or else lyrically symbolic in ways that don’t act as romans à clef. On Folklore, that came with the thrill of a breakthrough. Here, she fine-tunes the approach, with the result that Evermore feels like an anthology, with less of an integrated emotional throughline. But that it doesn’t feel as significant as Folklore is also its virtue. Lowered stakes offer permission to play around, to joke, to give fewer fucks—and this album definitely has the best swearing in Swift’s entire oeuvre.

Because it’s nearly all Dessner overseeing production and arrangements, there isn’t the stylistic variety that Antonoff’s greater presence brought to Folklore. However, Swift and Dessner seem to have realized that the maximalist-minimalism that dominated Folklore, with layers upon layers of restrained instrumental lines for the sake of atmosphere, was too much of a good thing. There are more breaks in the ambience on Evermore, the way there was with Folklore’s “Betty,” the countryish song that was among many listener’s favorites. But there are still moments that hazard misty lugubriousness, and perhaps with reduced reward.

Overall, people who loved Folklore will at least like Evermore too, and the minority of Swift appreciators who disapproved may even warm up to more of the sounds here. I considered doing a track-by-track comparison between the two albums, but that seemed a smidgen pathological. Instead, here is a blatantly premature Day 1 rundown of the new songs as I hear them.

A pleasant yet forgettable starting place, “Willow” has mild “tropical house” accents that recall Ed Sheeran songs of yesteryear, as well as the prolix mixed metaphors Swift can be prone to when she’s not telling a linear story. But not too severely. I like the invitation to a prospective lover to “wreck my plans.” I’m less sure why “I come back stronger than a ’90s trend” belongs in this particular song, though it’s witty. “Willow” is more fun as a video (a direct sequel to Folklore’s “Cardigan” video) than as a lead track, but I’m not mad at it here either.

Written with “William Bowery”—the pseudonym of Swift’s boyfriend Joe Alwyn, as she’s recently confirmed—this is the first of the full story songs on Evermore, in this case a woman describing having walked away from her partner on the night he planned to propose. The music is a little floaty and non-propulsive, but the tale is well painted, with Swift’s protagonist willingly taking the blame for her beau’s heartbreak and shrugging off the fury of his family and friends—“she would have made such a lovely bride/ too bad she’s fucked in the head.” Swift sticks to her most habitual vocal cadences, but not much here goes to waste. Except, that is, for the title phrase, which doesn’t feel like it adds anything substantial. (Unless the protagonist was drunk?) I do love the little throwaway piano filigree Dessner plays as a tag on the end.

This is the sole track Antonoff co-wrote and produced, and it’s where a subdued take on the spirit of 1989-style pop resurges with necessary energy. Swift is singing about having a crush on someone who’s too attractive, too in-demand, and relishing the fantasy but also enjoying passing it up. It includes some prime Swiftian details, like, “With my Eagles t-shirt hanging from your door,” or, “At dinner parties I call you out on your contrarian shit.” The line about this thirst trap’s “hair falling into place like dominos” I find much harder to picture.

This is where I really snapped to attention. After a few earlier attempts, Swift has finally written her great Christmas song, one to stand alongside “New Year’s Day” in her holiday canon. And it’s especially a great one for 2020, full of things none of us ought to do this year—go home to visit our parents, hook up with an ex, spend the weekend in their bedroom and their truck, then break their hearts again when we leave. But it’s done with sincere yuletide affection to “the only soul who can tell which smiles I’m faking,” and “the warmest bed I’ve ever known.” All the better, we get to revisit these characters later on the album.

On first listen, I found this one of the draggiest Dressner compositions on the record. Swift locates a specific emotional state recognizably and poignantly in this song about a woman trapped (or, she wonders, maybe not trapped?) in a relationship with an emotionally withholding, unappreciative man. But the static keyboard chord patterns and the wandering melody that might be meant to evoke a sense of disappointment and numbness risk yielding numbing and disappointing music. Still, it’s growing on me.

Featuring two members of Haim—and featuring a character named after one of them, Este—“No Body, No Crime” is a straight-up contemporary country song, specifically a twist on and tribute to the wronged-woman vengeance songs that were so popular more than a decade ago, and even more specifically “Before He Cheats,” the 2006 smash by Carrie Underwood, of which it’s a near musical clone, just downshifted a few gears. Swift’s intricate variation on the model is that the singer of the song isn’t wreaking revenge on her own husband, but on her best friend’s husband, and framing the husband’s mistress for the murder. It’s delicious, except that Swift commits the capital offence of underusing the Haim sisters purely as background singers, aside from one spoken interjection from Danielle.

This one has some of the same issues as “Tolerate It,” in that it lags too much for too long, but I did find more to focus on musically here. Lyrically and vocally, it gets the mixed emotions of a relatively amicable divorce awfully damned right, if I may speak from painfully direct experience.

This is the song sung from the POV of the small-town lover that the ambitious L.A. actress from “Tis the Damn Season”—Dorothea, it turns out—has left behind in, it turns out, Tupelo. Probably some years past that Xmas tryst, when the old flame finally has made it. “A tiny screen’s the only place I see you now,” he sings, but adds that she’s welcome back anytime: “If you’re ever tired of being known/ For who you know/ You know that you’ll always know me.” It’s produced and arranged with a welcome lack of fuss. Swift hauls out her old high-school-romance-songs vocal tone to reminisce about “skipping the prom/ just to piss off your mom,” very much in the vein of Folklore’s teen-love-triangle trilogy.

A duet with Dessner’s baritone-voiced bandmate in the National, Matt Berninger, “Coney Island” suffers from the most convoluted lyrics on Evermore (which, I wonder unkindly, might be what brought Berninger to mind?). The refrain “I’m on a beach on Coney Island, wondering where did my baby go” is a terrific tribute to classic pop, but then Swift rhymes it with “the bright lights, the merry go,” as if that’s a serviceable shorthand for merry-go-round, and says “sorry for not making you my centerfold,” as if that’s somehow a desirable relationship outcome. The comparison of the bygone affair to “the mall before the internet/ It was the one place to be” is clever but not exactly moving, and Berninger’s lines are worse. Dessner’s droning arrangement does not come to the rescue.

This song is also overrun with metaphors but mostly in an enticing, thematically fitting way, full of good Swiftian dark-fairytale grist. It’s fun to puzzle out gradually the secret that all the images are concealing—an engaged woman being drawn into a clandestine affair. And there are several very good “goddamns.”

The lyrical conceit here is great, about two gold-digging con artists whose lives of scamming are undone by their falling in love. It reminded me of the 1931 pre-Code rom-com Blonde Crazy, in which James Cagney and Joan Blondell act out a very similar storyline. And I mostly like the song, but I can’t help thinking it would come alive more if the music sounded anything like what these self-declared “cowboys” and “villains” might sing. It’s massively melancholy for the story, and Swift needs a far more winningly roguish duet partner than the snoozy Marcus Mumford. It does draw a charge from a couple of fine guitar solos, which I think are played by Justin Vernon (aka Bon Iver, who will return shortly).

The drum machine comes as a refreshing novelty at this point. And while this song is mostly standard Taylor Swift torrents of romantic-conflict wordplay (full of golden gates and pedestals and dropping her swords and breaking her high heel, etc.), the pleasure comes in hearing her look back at all that and shrugging, “Long story short, it was a bad ti-i-ime,” “long story short, it was the wrong guy-uy-uy,” and finally, “long story short, I survived.” She passes along some counsel I’m sure she wishes she’d had back in the days of Reputation: “I wanna tell you not to get lost in these petty things/ Your nemeses will defeat themselves.” It’s a fairly slight song but an earned valedictory address.

Swift fan lore has it that she always sequences the real emotional bombshell as Track 5, but here it is at 13, her lucky number. It’s sung to her grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, who died when Swift was in her early teens, and it manages to be utterly personal—down to the sample of Marjorie singing opera on the outro—and simultaneously utterly evocative to anyone who’s been through such grief. The bridge, full of vivid memories and fierce regrets, is the clincher.

This electroacoustic kiss-off song, loaded up with at least a fistful of gecs if not a full 100 by Dessner and co-producers BJ Burton and James McAlister, seems to be, lyrically, one of Swift’s somewhat tedious public airings of some music-industry grudge (on which, in case you don’t get it, she does not want “closure”), but, sonically, it’s a real ear-cleaner at this point on Evermore. Why she seems to shift into a quasi-British accent for fragments of it is anyone’s guess. But I’m tickled by the line, “I’m fine with my spite and my tears and my beers and my candles.”

I’m torn about the vague imagery and vague music of the first few verses of the album’s final, title track. But when Vernon, in full multitracked upper-register Bon Iver mode, kicks in for the duet in the middle, there’s a jolt of urgency that lands the redemptive ending—whether it’s about a crisis in love or the collective crisis of the pandemic or perhaps a bit of both—and satisfyingly rounds off the album.

[twilightreformation]

new moon reformation

I think it's funny that for all that new moon is my favorite book in the saga and actually took twilight in an interesting thematic direction I would change so much of it

first off edward is the one who almost attacks bella because that makes sense. while edward does hate himself he's also ridiculously overconfident, which i think would be exacerbated by him literally drinking bella's blood in the last book and only managing to stop himself with the ✨power of love✨. bella would forgive him instantly because she's always been "it's not your fault you're a vampire you drink blood <3" about it all, and as a character response it's indicative of a lot.

okay this one is not my original idea, requires some setup from the first twilight, and isn't a huge plot change, but I love it so I'm adding it here: edward always used to compliment bella on her hair because it's really long and pretty, and it was an aspect of her appearance bella actually liked. but when edward leaves, it's just another reminder of him. another reason she wasn't enough. so in the first week where she's all but catatonic, she hacks it all off with kitchen scissors at 3am so that it ends somewhere around her ears. she hopes it'll be cathartic, hopes it'll make her feel better, but it in fact makes her feel worse. after feeling the dissonance and seeing something that didn't fit her memories she resolved not to change anything else, not to let herself forget. plus a physical representation of the change she underwent/is still in the process of going through? love it. LOVE IT.

this whole post was originally meant to be a bullet point that went here but it got too long. suffice it to say, the romeo and juliet literary comparison needs to be streamlined.

oh and while ik this is from the movie, bella writing emails to alice that never get delivered was GENIUS. it adds so much to their friendship (which we never really got to see) and adds to the idea that it wasn't just edward bella lost, it was a family and a future. plus it's good foreshadowing for when alice actually shows up later, as if bella had summoned her. and my own bit that isn't necessary and makes less sense but i like it: bella writing physical letters that she simply addresses to alice cullen or the cullens that get sent back with a RETURN TO SENDER stamp.

jacob + the wolves get to keep their hair

jacob + the wolves aren't dangerous to humans or as aggressive

i hate imprinting but i love leah clearwater and i think the leah/sam/emily situation is very interesting (especially with how leah could have been a parallel to bella, and the juxtaposition of leah/sam/emily and edward/bella/jacob) so imprinting is reframed to not be this universally good thing pointing you to your destiny as much as something that takes away your agency, something jacob resents in the same way as he does the other aspects of his werewolfness. (imprinting on children absolutely does not happen, at all. ever.)

sam uley did not lose control and attack his partner because that is horrifying and completely brushed over in the book, how did smeyer simultaneously play into racist stereotypes AND not even bother to criticize domestic violence??

in general, the native characters should have been treated with much more respect and care, especially with regards to the negative stereotypes smeyer wrote into them, the complete disregard of the quileute tribe, and the lore she made up and included later

bella doesn't criticize jacob and the wolves for the people she thinks they killed, not because she thinks murder is okay, but she's shown in the past that she values the people she loves more than what she thinks is their nature or past horrific actions (why is she okay with edward being a mass murderer but holds jacob to a different standard? hello?)

either the cullens are NOT racist to the wolves and get to keep their morally-upright-characters status, or the cullens ARE racist to the wolves and the narrative properly acknowledges and criticizes the characters for it.

bella doesn't immediately forgive and accept edward back. while this may be out of character, I think it would be amazing if bella's character had developed and she came to acknowledge the horrific pain edward caused her, and took a step forward for her own health and decided to be on her own, at least for a while.

also this is my own agenda, and I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, but I wish bella had come clean to charlie about vampirism (and possibly the wolves as well). as I said in this post bella desperately needs someone to lean on and confide in that isn't trying to be her supernatural boyfriend, especially a parental figure considering bella's upbringing. again this would be an important moment of character development, of learning that relying on a parent rather than the other way around doesn't negate her value. it also means she's less isolated (which is an abuse tactic that it could be argued edward uses, as bella is not allowed to tell anyone he is a vampire and this leads to a strain on her relationships with her high school friends and her parents).

I think the vote scene should still happen, but bella should be more on the fence on whether or not she even wants to be a vampire anymore. her desire for vampirism is inherently tied to her self-esteem issues and depression, as well as her desire to be with edward forever. questioning these desires and figuring out on what terms she will or won't want these things is healthy!

also imagine with me how much more compelling eclipse would have been with more nebulous concepts overlapping (especially without it trying to tell you that in the end it was all a foregone conclusion): jacob vs. edward, wolfpack vs. cullens, bella stans vs. volturi/victoria, humanity vs. vampirism, life vs. death.

in conclusion: new moon you have so many problems I wish your author could write and your editor could edit and in general I wish the people that led to your creation had critical thinking skills

[fuanteinasekai]

Meta #3: The One Where It Gets a Little Weird

Please note: this meta is heavily focused on recent manga developments, so if you don’t want to be spoiled by it you should catch up on fan translations. Okay these aren't spoilers anymore.

Also, while I think reading my previous two metas would be useful in understanding some of this, I don’t really consider this a continuation per se, since this is purely focused on developments in the manga. I really didn’t want to get distracted by anime issues, for reasons which will perhaps becomes clear. 

There are two recent stories with particular relevance to Tanuma and Natsume. (Well, three, in a way, but we’ll get to that later.)

First, “Tenjō-san,” a story that’s mostly about the four boys tracking down a mysterious, supposedly yōkai-related artifact for Himura-Sempai, a graduating senior from a different high school. Of particular note are two things: 

The unusually strong theme of mortality. The story opens with Kitamoto in the hospital, having scared the boys with a bad fall. He’s fine, but Natsume and Tanuma are very worried. There’s also a subplot about an elderly man who once went on a similar mission with his own boyhood friends. He speaks wistfully of “Tetchan and the others” as if he lost contact—or they died. It's a reminder that human life is short—sometimes shorter than expected—and one cannot wait forever to figure things out.

Tanuma’s complicated feelings make a spectacular comeback. Both chapters of the story have at least one meaningful exchange between Natsume and Tanuma. In the first chapter, Tanuma encourages Natsume to be open about his doubts by telling him, “I still sometimes want to see the same world as you, but I think it’s because we see different things that we’re able to confirm things for each other.” In the second, he tells Natsume that he might need to keep Nishimura and Kitamoto in the dark just so he can have space to be normal, “Since I, out of worry, ask you if there’s a yōkai straight away.” This is framed as a self-deprecating remark and an expression of deeper insecurities, but also as something Natsume doesn’t understand (that is, doesn’t agree with).

The next arc is another long Natsume-Natori-Matoba story about the complicated lives of those who can see yōkai, and the different paths those lives can or should take. This story reinforces the image of Natori as a protective and somewhat controlling big brother, complete with another incident of Touko-san aggressively adopting Natori. It also emphasizes the difficulty of intimate relationships, implied to be romantic, when one has a connection of responsibility to the yokai world.

The story after that is where it gets… interesting. Setting aside my own personal preferences, at the same time as I’ve seen a lot of queer subtext between Natsume and Tanuma, I’ve also always [until recently] assumed Taki would be the eventual implied wife. She’s the only girl Natsume counts as a friend, much less close friend, and she’s the closest anyone gets to being on Tanuma’s level of intimacy. Having said that, I wasn’t happy about it. Compulsory heterosexuality is one of my least favorite tropes, because it always cheapens romance and I am a huge romantic. There are essentially no obstacles between Taki and Natsume—certainly none she wouldn’t share with basically any other girl—which makes the concept of a romantic arc extremely weak.

Yet not only did the opening of the next story appear to confirm our compulsory heterosexuality, it did so in such a laughably cliche way it seemed to circle right around to subversion: 

It opens with a girl who acts like she has a crush on Taki (but not explicitly), squealing about how “lovely” but “difficult to approach” she is.

Nishimura-the-Projector assumes Natsume will be upset by Taki’s “boyfriend.”

Natsume claims to be upset because he was left in the dark, rather than because she has a boyfriend per se, which under cliche-logic reads as “denial” even though it’s a perfectly valid reason.

Jealousy trope-storm without actual jealousy.

The boyfriend is actually a relative! Heehee! Nobody acknowledges that this is heteronormative gossip at its finest.

Taki talks about her brother as if she’s trying to hook him up with Natsume??

Natsume notices… the brother… is “the cute type”???

No seriously, why would you do that now of all times?

In any case, this was all tremendously upsetting and frustrating. Since I would have to wait yet another four months (or longer) to see Tanuma again, I decided to temporarily skip the second Taki chapter and spend that time on a thought experiment/coping mechanism: What if it were a subversion?

At first I toyed with the idea of writing platonic Taki/Natsume and romantic Tanuma/Natsume separately, but it didn’t work out. While the idea of subverting “boys and girls can’t stay friends” in isolation is admirable, it’s not something with any basis in Natsume Yūjinchō. That is, Taki’s lack of romantic potential—if intentional—has always been illuminated by contrast with Tanuma, whether through the Furry yōkai/Ito-san pseudo-arc I described in Meta #2, or through more direct comparisons as in “The Time-Eater.” Thus, platonic Taki/Natsume and romantic Tanuma/Natsume are two sides of the same coin, and I approached my theory with this in mind.

Since this story was obviously heavily centered on Taki, with Tanuma having nothing more than a brief mental cameo, the only way to draw Tanuma in for comparison is the “pseudo-arc.” In that light, I created an outline of how the next three chapters should proceed if Midorikawa-sensei did intend a subversive, queer platonic Taki/ romantic Tanuma theme.

First, the real-world logic. There are two basic reasons why Midorikawa-sensei might write romantic Natsume/Tanuma the way it’s gone so far:

Standard editorial censorship. Natsume’s Book of Friends isn’t an international juggernaut, but it’s popular enough to be a reliable cash cow. So there’d be more pressure to stay within the heteronormative lines than in an “indie” manga. In this case, Natsume/Tanuma would never be fully canon, but consistent subtext.

Quiet natural development. That is, if Natsume/Tanuma wasn’t originally intended but grew organically out of character development, then there’d have to be a transition period from “nominally platonic” to “explicitly romantic.” Since they’re both boys and this is a mainstream manga (not BL), it would have to be handled much more delicately than M/F romance.

Some combination of 1 and 2.

The first is actually fairly common and much more likely than the second, though the second is technically a slightly better fit with how things have gone so far. Either way, we’d still be at the “subtext” level for now. With the socio-cultural context Natsume is being written in, shifting a character from “presumed straight” to “explicitly queer” is a complicated maneuver. M/M ship bait is very common, and even a sympathetic audience won’t necessarily trust build-up to be real. So if you want your audience to actually follow the romantic development, it makes sense in theory to present it as platonic emotional development (with subtext) as long as possible before moving on to romantic text. And the subtext, for the most part, can’t be the sort of thing that reads as ship-bait. Which makes “eventually canon” difficult to distinguish from “intentional, but permanently subtext.” For this reason, I won't bother to separate the two.

So, drawing on the way Midorikawa-sensei has written in the past, my theoretical pro-Natsume/Tanuma progression looked like this:

A second chapter of Taki, in which Natsume is implied to be a brother figure (consistent with my initial subversive reading—there are a lot of parallels between Natsume fretting about Taki and Taki fretting about her brother + Natsume and her brother both have complicated relationships with yokai that conflict somewhat with Taki's fangirl-glasses). This creates a sense of depth and longevity to their relationship, while at the same time pushing a more explicitly platonic reading. The “omg Taki has a boyfriend” opening subtly injects a question of romance into the entire pseudo-arc (not so subtly into Taki’s half), answering with “no, they’re like siblings” to the Natsume/Taki question, but leaving Natsume/Tanuma open in the second part. Ideally the girl with the crush on Taki from the beginning should return at the end as a nod to the queer reading, and to close the “Taki needs to talk to more girls” loop that was interrupted by the fake boyfriend. 

The second part of the “pseudo-arc” would be two chapters heavily centered on Tanuma where:

There should be some sort of thematic parallel to the first (Taki) part, with a corresponding focus on Tanuma. I speculated that there might be a family theme, since we don’t know anything about Tanuma’s mom (in retrospect a poor guess—in Taki’s story the “family" was mirrored to Natsume), but it doesn’t matter what as long as it’s a definite parallel. [This is the basis for subtextually carrying the romantic question over to Tanuma.]

The parallel should be explicitly acknowledged in some way, however brief. [This acknowledges the existence of subtext and invites the reader to notice and pay attention.]

There should be other, smaller parallel moments, akin to the previous pseudo-arc’s Taki-Tanuma “lonely” mirroring. [This reinforces the existence of the parallel even though the plot is very different.]

The Tanuma story should escalate emotionally. For example, since Taki “listens to Natsume,” Tanuma should do something stronger like “take care of Natsume.” [This reinforces the romantic imagery, in contrast with something more brotherly.]

The trend of Tanuma being emotionally centered on Natsume, in contrast with Taki’s family focus, should continue. [ditto]

Tanuma’s feelings for Natsume should be more romanticized than Taki’s feelings, ideally on a level with “The Other Side of the Glass” and similar stories. [ditto]

No explicit references to romantic feelings, but a story more like a love story than Taki’s. Depth vs. surface. [ditto]

Ideally a reference to the “pond of emotional intimacy” would be super-great, but probably too much to ask. I think Midorikawa-Sensei forgot about it.

So what really did happen?

Just before returning to university, Taki’s brother says “I suppose I could leave [someone like] you in charge of my little sister,” which could be interpreted as deputizing Natsume as “older brother” in his absence. [I don’t want to make any definitive statements about translation at my level of Japanese—it can also be read as a patriarchal approval of the “presumed boyfriend,” though if Natsume is considering Taki that way, it doesn’t seem to fit Natsume and Sensei’s identical reactions.] Natsume then proceeds to explain her brother’s situation to Taki before happily allowing Girl-With-Crush to distract her with sweets. The ending feels very neat—as if their relationship issues have all been more or less dealt with. It’s essentially the opposite of what I expected from romantic Taki, in which we might see a certain ambiguous open-endedness, tension, or a sense that Natsume is reevaluating the way he sees Taki. There is none of that here.

And then there’s the next story. As predicted, it was heavily Tanuma-centered. This alone isn’t terribly meaningful, since we hadn’t seen Tanuma in a while. However, it also had a few… similarities to my outline:

It parallels Taki’s story with a “visitor” theme, and with the way the visitor arguably mirrors Natsume himself. 

Natsume acknowledges the thematic parallel: “A visitor every day? I wonder if it’s family like that time with Taki.” I had to take a moment here to laugh hysterically; I wasn't expected it to be this obvious. (Taki: “boyfriend” → family | Tanuma: “family” → ??)

Several mirrored moments, mostly in the first chapter, including “what kind of person?,” Nishimura as contrast, the running, the explanation-of-the-problem, the shocked reaction to meeting, the final-bench-discussion and so on.

“I always get her to listen to me.” → “He always listens and smiles for me.”; “I too [will listen to you] the way you always listen to me.”  → “You’ve kept me company so many times when I was mixed up with yōkai, so [��] I will keep you company, too.” (When I initially wrote my outline, I had missed that he uses もらう for Taki’s listening, which downplays her intent. So even though his description of Tanuma is similar, this is an upgrade.)

Pretty blatant difference in romantic subtext, here. Taki is emotionally preoccupied with her brother and their grandfather. The climax is her brother giving her the gift he made with their grandfather as a small child. Tanuma is emotionally preoccupied with the gap in power between himself and Natsume and how that affects their relationship. The climax is watching their yōkai mirrors, in matching vessels, spiral together into the sky.

Tanuma clutches at his heart when Natsume calls his name. Tanuma wants to “see the same things Natsume sees, together,” Tanuma wishes he could be strong so Natsume wouldn’t “worry and [I/we could]…”. Natsume feels that Misuzu is “seeing through” him right after Tanuma calls him a friend. A lot of interruptions, unfinished sentences and unspoken feelings. Etc. Though Taki’s story opens with romantic cliche, and Natsume is very determined to be helpful, it’s Tanuma’s story that’s thick with romantic imagery. Taki’s story, by contrast, romanticizes the protective, sheltering image of the older brother, who cares for his little sister (and vice versa) even though they can't quite understand each other.

In terms of the “love story”: again, Taki’s emotions are centered on her brother. Tanuma’s are centered on Natsume, with even his desire to get to know yōkai being fundamentally tied to Natsume. Tanuma in particular is written with strong undertones of longing and trying to find a way closer, while Natsume gets little chance to think deeply or speak to Tanuma alone, distracted by the Misuzu problem and how it relates to Tanuma’s health and happiness. Tanuma’s story is also much more open-ended. While Taki’s story seems to end with a sense of satisfaction, Tanuma’s is full of tension. The question of how they come together safely (platonically or otherwise) remains unresolved.

The pond continues to play a metaphorical role as a place that symbolizes what they do or don’t share. Though Tanuma cannot see the pond itself, he can see shadows ordinary people cannot—in “Same Scenery” he referred to these shadows as something only the two of them could see. For Misuzu and Sasame, it is a literal halfway point between their marshes, and a place where they meet specifically to be together.[IMO, this is why it doesn't appear in "The Days-Eater": the symbolism of the pond is specifically tied to the two of them, so it would be inapproprate to reference it in Taki's presence.]

So… what does this mean? I don’t know. I promised myself I would let go of the queer reading if I got anything less than a Taki-Tanuma pseudo-arc—even if I got a story that heavily romanticized Tanuma without paralleling Taki’s story. Actually getting what I wanted, exactly what I wanted, is less satisfying than it might seem. Set against the overwhelming prevalence of heteronormativity, it's left me in a curious limbo of uncertainty. It’s hard to swallow the idea that my accuracy was a complete coincidence, but I may have been wrong about the reasons for this pattern. 

While it’s objectively lazy, there’s a great deal of precedent in letting superficial romantic features like “cuteness” supersede features like devotion, so long as the former is opposite sex and the latter same sex. In other words, I may have the pattern backwards, with Tanuma being set up as platonic soulmate, and Taki as the romantic lead. Perhaps we are meant to draw a parallel between Tanuma and Taki’s brother as a “difficult older brother” figure (even though Tanuma is younger), given they are both “easily possessed.” If so, they have little else in common. The (simultaneous??) mirroring between Tanuma and Taki would probably be for the purpose of establishing Natsume’s most important platonic, non-family-like relationship as equally important to romance. This isn’t exactly inconsistent with the emphasis the manga places on the importance of platonic love.

Still, it’s an odd choice to make Taki’s feelings primarily about someone else if the story is meant to set a romance in motion, particularly in contrast to Tanuma. And the older brother/Natsume mirroring would have to be unintentional, since it’s a bit, um, awkward otherwise, which would mean the undeniable Misuzu/Natsume mirroring is coincidental. And so on. At its heteronormative best, “The Troublesome Two” is a story about Natsume’s crush on Taki, and Taki’s love for her brother and late grandfather. At its potential best, it’s a subversive story about how an unrelated boy and a girl can care deeply about each other without having romantic feelings—and about how girls aren’t necessarily more emotionally and socially competent than boys just because they’re girls.

In any case, Tanuma’s story is worth looking at a bit more closely.

First, a summary of the actual plot:

Tanuma receives a mysterious, persistent, explicitly gender-ambiguous “human” visitor who turns out to be Misuzu (the powerful horse yōkai) in disguise. He’s excited by the opportunity to get to know a yōkai, so Natsume decides to support him, despite his fears, by hovering like gnat and glaring at Misuzu while they go around looking at scenery. Eventually it’s revealed that Tanuma has been quietly possessed by Misuzu’s fellow marsh guardian… soulmate… friend thing, and that it’s this “Sasame” who Misuzu has been interested in, rather than Tanuma. There’s a climax where Sasame tries to escape being removed from Tanuma, and Tanuma empathizes with their relative lack of power because he sees Sasame (who is very weak) with Misuzu as being similar to himself with Natsume. Sensei confronts Sasame about their motivations, thereby leading to Sasame voluntarily leaving and joining Misuzu in their wooden-doll-possessing-competition… thing. 

Though nominally platonic, the story is romantic and emotional, centering on the gap in power between Natsume and Tanuma and their mutual attempts to bridge that gap without actually talking about it.

The first thing I’d like to talk about is the imagery.

Chronologically left to right this time. Tanuma looks odd on the right because of Sasame. Friendly reminder that Midorikawa-Sensei hates drawing hands.

Japanese culture is not physically demonstrative or openly emotional in general, but young children and teen girls are allowed far more leeway than teen boys and adults. So much so that teen girls can even hold hands in a “romantic” way and still be assumed to be straight. This is not as visible in Natsume Yūjinchō as in Midorikawa-sensei’s other work, since there’s only one recurring teen girl. But it is visible in her art for Season 6 of the anime, where Sasada and Taki are holding hands in the background. It’s also apparent in the way that different characters express themselves. Female characters are more physically emotional, and more visibly vulnerable than male characters. For example, male characters do not usually hold their hands in front of their stomach or their chest—a somewhat defensive gesture—and will ball up their fists at their side instead. (Or use Sensei as a shield.) Male vulnerability is mostly expressed through facial expressions.

So even for a boy like Tanuma, this kind of emotional gesture is notable. A single example would be interesting. Two is suspicious. Three is a pattern. This fits the theory that this story is meant to break open a new arc in Natsume and Tanuma’s relationship; changing course requires far more effort than staying on the new course. It’s exactly what Taki’s story was yelling about right before it veered off into “family” territory—except Tanuma’s story stayed consistent. The hand-over-heart, standing-on-water scene was on the very first page, without even a chapter cover to get in the way. The longing, out-stretched hand is from a scene that sets the emotional context for Tanuma’s behavior. The heart-clutching is part of the climax. Every one of these is directly or implicitly linked to his feelings about Natsume.

The out-stretched hand is particularly important. This is the dialog that sets it up:

あのヒト妖だったのか… すごいものだな　普通に人間に見えているのに… ささいで小さな妖との繋がりのかけら　夏目はいつもあんなに苦労している　そ��を知ってるのに夏目が見ているものを一緒に見てみたいと思ってしまう　ー夏目は強い　おれもそうだったらあんなに心配させずにー　… どうしたんだ　おれらしくもない　…なんだか欲ばりだ

“[Spoken aloud to himself] That person was an ayakashi…? What an amazing thing. Even though they look like an ordinary human… [Internally] Such a tiny, insignificant fragment of a connection to ayakashi. Natsume is always going through so much trouble. I know that, but I still find myself thinking I’d like to see the things he sees, together. —Natsume is strong. If I were too, without worrying him— [it would be possible to do something]… What’s the deal? That’s not like me. …Kind of greedy.”

When Tanuma is talking to Natsume about something similar in “Tenjō-san,” his wording is vague, potentially even reading as envy though that doesn’t really suit the context. He says he’d “like to see the same world as [Natsume], sometimes.” Here in the privacy of his own mind, he’s more clear. This scene, with it’s implication that Tanuma wants to share Natsume’s world, is implicitly romantic—particularly in light of Taki’s furry yōkai story. 

Though there were several moments when Natsume seemed suspicious of the nature of the furry yōkai’s feelings for Taki (never explicit), it’s reading the letter at the end that seems to convince him. In this letter, the yōkai expresses their gratitude for Taki’s help, and their desire to “see the beautiful mountains and beautiful valleys” with Taki. In fact, the wording itself is suspiciously familiar.

If we set aside the obvious differences and focus on the emotional core of the letter, we get:

[~]をともに見てみたいと思ってしまった。

“I found myself thinking I’d like to see [the beautiful mountains and beautiful valleys] together.”

Compare Tanuma:

[~]を一緒に見てみたいと思ってしまう。

“I find myself thinking I’d like to see [the things Natsume sees] together.”

There are two differences here. One, the word for “together”: the yokai’s letter uses the formal/written ともに, whereas Tanuma’s thought uses the casual/spoken 一緒に. The words are otherwise completely identical in meaning, so this difference should probably be considered functionally meaningless. The other difference is actually in Tanuma’s favor.

What I translated as “I find/found myself thinking” is the auxiliary verb しまう. This word has no real equivalent in English. It means “to finish completely” but is commonly used to add a nuance of lack of intention and probably regret to an action. For example, where an English speaker might say “Oh no, I forgot!” the Japanese speaker would say “I forgot—shimatta!” If “shimatta” sounds familiar, that’s because it’s very common and can even be used on its own (where it is frequently—and hilariously—translated as “damn”).

Here both furry yōkai and Tanuma are using しまう to express regret or even self-reproach for their seemingly futile desires as well as (in Tanuma’s case) the sense that the desire is selfish. The difference is the conjugation. Furry yōkai uses the perfective aspect—often taught as “past tense” because that’s the primary use—which indicates the completion of an action. Tanuma is using the imperfective, which indicates a lack of completion either because something is ongoing (recurring, not continuous), or because it is yet to be performed at all (future).

Grammatically there are a few different interpretations of perfective vs imperfective, but in this context only one thing makes sense. The furry yōkai is encapsulating his desire as a singular experience, something they have wrapped up and set to the side (consistent with their refusal to engage directly with Taki or allow Natsume to do so for them) and don’t expect to deal with in the future. Tanuma, on the other hand, considers this desire to be an issue he struggles with repeatedly and sees no quick end to. Even though he, like the furry yōkai, knows it to be impossible, he can’t let it go—and nor can the story.

Regardless of any potential parallels to Taki’s furry yōkai, this desire to see yōkai in order to share them with Natsume is a major theme. While we do occasionally go a few pages without being reminded, Tanuma’s motivations in this story are neither subtle nor subtext. The logic is fairly straightforward:

Knowing a yōkai ⇒ having a connection to the yōkai world ⇒ having a connection to Natsume’s world ⇒ being closer to Natsume.

The scene above lays it out all but explicitly, but this motivation is referenced multiple times (not in order):

—“I can’t let him keep worrying forever. If there’s anything that would help hurry things along even a little…” [While investigating a dream.]

—“I was happy that your ayakashi friend seemed to take an interest in me.”

––“[I miss feeling like I knew a yōkai but] I still had a good time, in the end. I got to see the same things as you.”

—“So that means I get to know a yōkai Natsume knows?”

The last one is rather telling. First, because it confirms the connection to Natsume is important to him. Second, because he says it while holding Sensei. Sensei does not “count” for this purpose because Sensei is not inaccessible. Even completely ordinary people like Nishimura and Kitamoto interact with Sensei on a regular basis, albeit without realizing he can talk. Tanuma wants more than that. But even more, he wants more than what’s available to, well, Taki—the other “ordinary” person who talks to Sensei.

Yet all of this serves only to reinforce a pre-existing theme. For Taki, the yōkai world is intrinsically emotionally bound to her grandfather. For Tanuma, it’s emotionally bound to Natsume himself. Further, he sees it as a barrier between them that he needs power to overcome. This has a long-running basis:

—When they first meet, Natsume makes it clear he wants to talk to Tanuma because he believes Tanuma can see the same things. Tanuma, likewise, wants to meet Natsume because he’s heard they’re similar. It makes sense, then, that he would see their relationship—and his worth as a friend—as being strongly tied to yōkai.

—In Tanuma’s special, his second major appearance, he frets about his weakness being the reason Natsume always lies and disappears without warning. He knows that Natsume is trying to protect him from yōkai trouble, but secretly fights the fear that Natsume is disappointed in his lack of power. The story ends with him wondering whether Natsume will ever tell him “what color the fish [in Tanuma’s yōkai pond] are” and whether he’ll ever be able to ask. Natsume talking about the yōkai pond, then, is established as a metaphor for Natsume opening up and treating Tanuma as a genuine friend.

—In the mirror arc, Tanuma borrows the yokai’s sight (i.e. power) because he wants to see what Natsume is reacting to. The yōkai later tells Natsume “It was what he wanted. […] Even though he knows [you’re trying to be kind] he doesn’t understand. Even though he’s right beside you, not knowing…” Earlier in the story, there’s a mildly comic set of exchanges where he repeatedly gushes about how “amazing” Natsume’s ability is.

—In “The Other Side of the Glass,” Tanuma’s flashback to Natsume not paying attention while he plays shogi connects the yōkai world to Tanuma’s perception of being kept at a distance. That is, Natsume is mentally drawn away from Tanuma by things that Tanuma (normally) cannot even see and therefore cannot work against. Tanuma eventually breaks down because he feels that in trying to be involved, he’s become “a burden” who “doesn’t know how far to intrude” and “doesn’t want to put up walls because of that.” At the end, he’s wistful about leaving the yōkai world and losing his sight.

—In “Distant Festival Lights” Tanuma reveals he “never even imagined” that yōkai were real until he met Natsume. Thus yōkai as something real to be wondered at must be inextricably bound to Natsume himself.

For several stories afterward, this desire is shifted to the background as the narrative focuses on what Tanuma can do: provide emotional support (as with Natsume’s story about his unwed grandmother) and run interference in the background. Tanuma’s desire to see yōkai does not come up during this calm period. However, the theme starts to creep back in with the ryokan story, along with his lack of faith in his own abilities—he assumes a real vision was “just a dream” because there’s nothing there when he wakes up, and apologizes to Natsume for reacting to it.

In Tenjō-san, he talks about how he feels about Natsume’s world:

夏目の世界はあいまいなものがいっぱいなんだな　おれは…やっぱり時々夏目と同じ世界を見てみたいなと思うけど　見えるものが違うからこそ確認しあえることもあるのかもしれないなって…

“Your [Natsume’s] world is full of ambiguous things, isn’t it? I… still think I’d like to the the same world as you, sometimes. But I also think maybe there are times when it’s because the things we see are different that we can confirm things for each other.” [Emphasis is original.]

In other words, this story is really just foregrounding something that’s always been subtext.

Which brings me to my next point: the use of mirroring. I assumed from the start that Misuzu was a mirror for Natsume in order to parallel Taki’s brother as a mirror. There seemed to be some basis for this in the first chapter—in spending so much time talking with Tanuma, Misuzu was preventing Natsume from talking to Tanuma. (Natsume frets about not getting to talk to Tanuma “at all” because the guest had been coming “for a few days.”) And in taking Tanuma around to look at various scenery, Misuzu’s actions are suspiciously similar to what Natsume worries about failing at: “Even though I have him right beside me, I keep him company with nothing but talk of scenery we cannot share.” [Emphasis mine.] The mirroring ended up being more explicit than I expected: Tanuma openly compares Sasame and Misuzu’s relationship to his with Natsume. This is an interesting narrative technique, for a couple of reasons.

Sasame—and Misuzu in particular��are not just yōkai. They are yōkai who act very differently from humans, to the point that it’s specifically highlighted. Of all the yōkai Natsume knows, Misuzu is one of the least human. They chose the form of a horse. They have a frog as a “retainer.” They once “tested" Natsume’s worthiness with a deadly curse. And in this story itself, they complain that they don’t understand why Natsume won’t just order them around, even though they specifically allowed him that power. In other words, they express themselves in ways that are not easily mapped onto human behavior. This is important because it allows the Misuzu/Sasame to Natsume/Tanuma mirroring to be opaque in many ways. For example, it’s not at all clear what the Natsume/Tanuma equivalent of possessing identical dolls and having a boisterous contest would be. This means that the story can move forward with strong emotional overtones while also refusing to define exactly what kind of relationship they’re supposed to have. It’s a convenient excuse to have two characters behave in a very romantic way without having to justify why they’re not actually in a romantic relationship. This is nearly the opposite of Taki’s story, where the use of her brother as mirror (if intentional) has strongly platonic overtones.

Another example of deliberate (and clever) muddling is in the presentation of Sasame and Tanuma’s emotions while Sasame inhabits Tanuma. Both characters are implied to be influenced by the other. Tanuma says “What’s the deal? That’s not like me. Kind of greedy.” Later, Sasame tells Sensei not to worry about Tanuma because “There was something off with me. [It’s not like me to] take advantage of the child of man this way.” Neither of them are really suggesting that the nature of emotions are strange, only more self-centered than usual. This suggests that their desires are so aligned, they effectively amplified each other, creating a stronger sense of desperation and thus greed. For example, both of them enjoyed their “daily routine” with Misuzu and Natsume, for related reasons. Sasame wanted to share Misuzu’s world, and Tanuma wanted to share Natsume’s world via Misuzu. 

However, since Sasame!Tanuma’s actions are influenced by the emotions of both characters, it’s difficult to tease out exactly who is feeling what. When Tanuma is so happy to get dragged off by Misuzu, is that because—as he later tells Natsume—he was “happy that your ayakashi friend seemed to take an interest in me”—happy that part of Natsume’s world was actively trying to involve him? Or was it because Sasame was happy about Misuzu’s active involvement? To a certain extent, it’s beside the point. These characters are mirrors. What Tanuma feels about Misuzu is what Sasame feels about Misuzu is what Tanuma feels about Natsume. Both want to be closer and more involved. Both are afraid of being left behind, of being “unable to keep up.”

On a similar note, we return to the mirroring between Natsume and Misuzu. Misuzu smirks through much of the story, but shows serious vulnerability on more than one occasion—right before returning to smirking. This suggests that Misuzu is hiding just how invested they are. Though they express themselves in very yōkai-like ways, Misuzu is just as concerned about Sasame as Natsume is about Tanuma. Misuzu even uses the same phrase, 付き合う or “to keep company,” as Natsume. That is, Natsume says he will “keep [Tanuma] company” with Misuzu because Tanuma has “kept me company so many times when I was involved with yōkai.” Misuzu later explains their own behavior, saying that they only intended to “keep Sasame company in whatever it is they want to do.” Both, then, are shown to not entirely understand their companions motivations, but to want to indulge them regardless. The implication is that they mirror each other in their style of showing affection.

Further, both Misuzu and Natsume seem clueless as to their companion’s desires. Natsume shows progress in understanding, but is repeatedly distracted by Misuzu. Misuzu, for their part, claims that Sasame retains possession of Tanuma because Tanuma is “comfortable” and “easy to possess,” apparently unaware that Sasame is specifically enjoying the new type of companionship with Misuzu that having a human body offers. On the same note, Misuzu’s confusion about why they want to spend time with Sasame!Tanuma in such “odd” ways is interesting in the context of being Natsume’s mirror. It suggests that Natsume himself does not quite understand how he feels about spending time with Tanuma like this. The reveal that Misuzu was actually talking to Sasame only makes this confusion more poignant: Misuzu does not understand why they are enjoying simply walking around, looking at nostalgic places with their favorite companion, when they had come for a boisterous contest. This is another good example of how being yōkai make the parallels somewhat opaque.

Another interesting point is the way in which Natsume’s feelings balance Tanuma’s. Though we’re given somewhat more access into how Tanuma feels, due to Natsume being distracted by Misuzu, we do get a hint of the broader problem. Natsume is worried about whether Tanuma will “listen and smile” for him “forever.” Then he chides himself for only “keeping Tanuma company with nothing but talk of scenery we cannot share.” When Tanuma sympathizes with Sasame, he points out how “unbearably painful” it is to be “unable to keep up with your friend.” Both Natsume and Tanuma use いつでも “forever” in the context of trying to make their companion happy. For Tanuma, it’s because he knows he worries Natsume. For Natsume, it’s the concern about Tanuma's interest in "scenery we cannot share." Tanuma is worried about spiritual power, and how it would (in theory) facilitate being closer to Natsume. Natsume, on the other hand, is worried about his actual relationship skills. He knows that he’s not giving Tanuma as much as he should, but doesn’t seem to have any ideas about what he should give. The only thing we have to go on is “scenery we cannot share,” which suggests that moving forward might involve finding scenery they can share—exactly like they did with Misuzu. So there’s a sense that they’re both actively trying to find a way forward, but they’re not communicating well enough to do it right.

There is one way in which the story could be read as explicitly platonic. When describing the marshes that they and Sasame protect, Misuzu describes them as being “like identical twins.” If this is intended to mark them as “surrogate twins,” then obviously that would be a platonic reading. However, I don’t think this is the case. Instead, I think this more “soulmate” subtext. After all, it’s not Misuzu and Sasame who are described as “identical twins,” but the appearance of their homes. And place, in Natsume Yūjinchō, is often a stand-in for something like heart.

For example, many of Taki’s stories happen in her home, to symbolize the importance of family to her. Likewise, the Fujiwaras home is a symbol of the affection and safe boundaries they provide to Natsume. Natsume had to let go of the “Natsume” family home before he could move on from the loss of his parents. More dramatic is Reiko’s field of flowers: isolated, hidden from human and yōkai alike, a secret for Reiko alone, yet beautiful—and blue for Souko, the girl who came the closest to seeing her true self. The pond that’s so important for this story is also symbolic: it’s both the place where Natsume and Tanuma’s powers meet and the place where Misuzu and Sasame meet to be together.

But more directly relevant is the story of Gen and Sui: the gods who inhabited a “set of two” dog statues and protected a village from afar, until Sui’s statue was destroyed and she became a demon. The term 一対 implies either a perfectly matched set, or items that are nearly identical but with a twist (like male and female or silver and gold). So while the word “twin” wasn’t used in that story, it’s conceptually very similar to how the marshes were described. Misuzu is an explicitly genderless horse-person and Sasame is literally formless, but Gen and Sui were heavily anthropomorphized and explicitly gendered as male and female. And while the nature of their relationship is never explicit, Gen and Sui made much more sense as a romantic couple than as siblings. For one thing, their style of speech is consistent with an old-fashioned couple (similar to Touko-san and Shigeru-san’s). They also use similar romantic language as other couples, like wanting to “be able to be together forever” and being “happy because you were there.” So the reading that Sasame and Misuzu’s “twin” marshes are symbols of emotional compatibility—and their need to be together—is at least consistent with how Midorikawa-sensei has written in the past.

For a while I was troubled by the symbolism of Sasame’s fading marsh in this context. It’s a terrible fit for Misuzu and Sasame (and thus Natsume and Tanuma) being “like identical twins,” but didn’t seem to fit much better with the idea of their hearts being “like identical twins.” But eventually it occurred to me that the fading of Sasame’s marsh along with their powers did fit with a certain view of “heart”—just not the limited scope of love. In Japanese, “heart” has roughly the same set of metaphorical meanings as in English, but with an additional dash of “mind” depending on context. So think emotions, deep thoughts, sincere beliefs. Sort of an “inner self” thing. In this context it’s easier to understand how Sasame’s heart has been weakened. With their diminishing existence and the “widening gap” in power, Sasame is emotionally stretched thin. Fading hope, the strain of feeling left behind by someone they adore, the belief that the one thing they have no control over is the one thing that matters the most. This is Sasame’s fading heart—and this is what they have in common with Tanuma.

And in fact this fits Sasame’s dialog, as they wonder whether taking advantage of Tanuma, and focusing so much on Misuzu’s power, means their heart has grown “barren” along with their power.

This might be depressing but for the implication that it’s not actually Sasame’s or Tanuma’s power itself that has made them feel this way. It’s the fact that they have been following an old, inadequate rulebook with Misuzu (and Natsume), and need to communicate in order to adapt. Sasame frets about power, but when they comment on the “liveliness” around Misuzu, Sensei makes a point:

にぎやかから満たされているとも限るまい

“I suppose we can’t assume that lively surroundings always mean that one is fulfilled.”

This triggers Sasame’s memory of Misuzu’s “nostalgia” comments, and their realization that “It’s not as if [Misuzu] came hoping I would just be strong.” In other words, there is something about Sasame (Tanuma) that is important to Misuzu (Natsume) that cannot be replaced by all the other “lively” people and yōkai in the world. What exactly this means for them and their future is left unspoken, but it’s clearly emotional:

“I’m sorry [for what I did], child of Man. Surely, even without being able to keep up…[something they want will be possible]”

The way the story ends, as well, feels pointed. As I mentioned earlier, Taki’s story did not fit my conception of “setting a romantic arc in motion” because it felt too finished. The only thing arguably unfinished in the end is Taki’s new friendship with Girl-With-Crush. The end-cap is Natsume cheerfully affirming the importance of keeping promises to family-figures (in this case Sensei, to whom he promised an eclair for dealing with Taki). This is superimposed over an image of the gift from Taki’s brother and grandfather: a rock painted with floral designs (it's a fake yokai connection [the stonewashers], but authentic feelings). The overall feeling is that Natsume has solved all their issues. He convinced Taki she could talk to him, figured out why her brother was acting weird and helped the siblings uncover the gift that was meant to help tie them together, then finally observed Taki having positive social interaction with someone who wasn’t yōkai-adjacent. (Note that Natsume had nothing to do with Taki’s new friendship; it was the girl herself who worked up the courage to approach Taki. And she used sweets—the language Taki speaks—to do so, showing a higher level of mental compatibility than anyone else thus far.) There’s no sense that Natsume’s feelings about Taki have shifted, that he sees her any differently, or that he has any curiosity about her future romantic life.

On the other hand, the ending of Tanuma’s story does what Taki’s didn’t: it leaves a suggestive opening. Tanuma happily says goodbye “Again, tomorrow!” in much the same way as Misuzu has been, implying a return to regular close interaction—and perhaps a more deliberately “daily” interaction. Then Misuzu reappears, and smirkingly tells Natsume “Tanuma Kaname is a rather fun/interesting guy.” Choosing to use Tanuma’s full name for the first time is all but a wink, and using 中々 for “rather” suggests either they’ve begun to see Tanuma with new eyes—or they think Natsume has and they’re making a point of noticing— 中々 has a connotation of “unusually high” or “more than expected.” Natsume’s unimpressed reaction suggests he’s not pleased at the idea of Misuzu’s renewed interest or teasing, and he pointedly reminds Misuzu of Sasame, asking how their “contest” went. Misuzu’s counter that it is, essentially, private is overlaid on an image of the contest’s meeting place: the pond which, to Tanuma, symbolizes both the connection and the barrier between him and Natsume. The pond whose dripping water Natsume was distracted from when Misuzu arrived. This has a strong implication that there’s something about Natsume and Tanuma’s relationship that’s not meant to be shared outside the two of them.

This is all… more than a bit suggestive. But it’s not explicit.

It’s not clear how Misuzu and Sasame will move forward, considering they ended with the same “competition” as usual, but we know they have learned from the experience. Both Misuzu and Sasame found that they enjoyed a quieter way of being together, and Sasame began to realize that Misuzu sees them as more than just someone to play games of strength with.

Likewise it’s not clear how Natsume and Tanuma will move forward, though the fact that they spent time basically looking at scenery together is a neat counterpoint to Natsume’s lament that he “does nothing but talk about scenery we cannot share.” It’s also something they can do without Misuzu or Sasame—as they did with the fireworks so long ago. They do make explicit progress when Natsume, hurt by Tanuma’s reticence, reminds him that “it doesn’t matter whether it’s yōkai or not, if something is bothering you, you should tell me!” However, this is only a single facet of their problem. It’s the sort of thing they ought to have been taking for granted by now, but it doesn’t really answer the question of what they can actively do together to find contentment. There’s a sense that they’re making progress, but still have somewhere to go. Acknowledging that they want to talk about something other than yōkai is simply the first step in that direction.

In the end, there’s still quite a bit I haven’t gotten into: the use of suspiciously suggestive wording, and the way Misuzu is positioned as a subtextual rival. The way Tanuma’s insecurity about his powers mirrors his insecurity about his relationship with Natsume. The various connections to earlier stories. Tanuma’s romanticization of selflessness and the way this, with his insecurity, is an obstacle in their relationship. But this meta needed to end at some point, so this is as good as any.

I’m still uncertain as to the intent of this story. I still don’t know whether it meant to lay down romantic subtext or just sort of stumbled clumsily into it. But no matter what, it’s a deeply emotional story that solidifies Tanuma’s singularity and significance, and the importance of being closer to Natsume. So whatever may happen with Taki, or with Tanuma, there is some comfort to be had in that.

[roominthecastle]

Hello, beautiful one. Love your blog and all your insights about the recent TGP episode as it relates to M/E. Are you going to do an analysis of the episode as it pertains to our ‘ship, or at least one about the parallels between M/E and D/D? Thank you and keep up the good work. As one of my heroes liked to say, “Don’t let the bastards get you down.”

Thank you! They’ve been trying to get me down in every fandom for like a decade now but haters are usually my best motivators, so joke’s on them. ;) I don’t plan on making a separate ‘ship post bc I’ve already said p much everything I wanted (for now) in my answers to the messages that flooded in after the ep, but the ME/DD parallels? w/ pleasure! *cracks knuckles* Let’s do that one.

Eleanor and Donna are carbon copies of each other, and this episode serves as a great reminder. It’s not only their “sunbaked Arizona trash” pasts that line up, it’s also the way they left it behind, which involved “dying” and meeting the right people. Even though Eleanor doesn’t remember her afterlife journey (yet?), it matches her mom’s (and here’s hoping that she can work her way back to that happiness again). And Dave is not a Chidi or a Jason or a Tahani - Dave is a Michael.

first, a brief summary to help me stay on track:

Donna lives in Dave’s home in Tarantula (1) Springs under the fake identity of Diana Tremaine (2) bc Donna Shellstrop is dead (3), but Dave knows all along who she really is. He’s an oddball architect (4) and they met in a condemned bar (5). When she realized who he was and that tearing it down was his project, she went at him with a knife. But this antagonism switched to attraction and then evolved into a committed relationship (6).

(1) Michael’s home is the Bad Place where they happen to love spiders: they eat them, they use them for human torture, and they keep them as pets. The Fake Good Place is part of this “landscape” and, for all intents and purposes, it was also Eleanor’s home during the reboots. As Michael remarks, “We lived in the same neighborhood.”

(2) Diana Tremaine is Eleanor’s fake identity, too. Donna “wears it” in a loving, committed relationship, Eleanor “wears it” during the time when two pivotal moments occur btw her and Michael: one in the torture museum where she openly displays worry for his well-being, striking a chord w/ him, and the other is the famous portal scene where Michael demonstrates his commitment by giving her his “everything I ever wanted” pin.

(3) This is a point of interest bc both Eleanor and Donna are in a kind of in-between situation here. Donna is officially “dead” but she also isn’t. Eleanor was dead for real and then… wasn’t due to some timeline meddling. And they both turned into better people after they “died” and started a new life (or afterlife in Eleanor’s case).

(4) Dave is aware of who Donna is from the start just as Michael knows who Eleanor is from day one. They love Donna and Eleanor respectively for who they are. Also, these two have practically everything in common: occupation, general disposition, glasses, sense of humor, and, most importantly, a deep fondness for knife-wielding blonde firecrackers. Donna describes Dave as a “kind of a dork but real sweet and so fancy”. That’s Michael, too, which is why he gets picked on by other demons. Even their approach to architecture is similar: Dave is a messy screwball innovator himself (he combined a Subaru dealership w/ a burlesque club and designed the “first Hooters made out of brick” that was “sort of inspired by Monticello“).

(5) Bars are a Michael/Eleanor thing in general. Their first meeting in this Earth reboot takes place in the Desert Rosé. Dave and Donna met in the Desert Rash. The similarities are given and the slight difference btw Rosé and Rash also nicely comments on the fact that D/D is overtly sexual to the point of being seedy while M/E is - and I kinda hate this word now due to fandom over-and misuse but it’s the best one here - purer. They are variations on the same theme, though.

(6) Eleanor wanted to “physically attack Michael”, “seduce him”, “use a large/small knife”, “indecent proposal him” after she realized she was in a  condemned place, i.e. in a Bad Place neighborhood, which was Michael’s architect project. The show kindly thought of those heathens who are not into freeze-framing their way through episodes and are therefore unaware of these plans, so all this is visually and verbally alluded to in the scene where she keeps pointing her knife at him, proposes a seduction and inquires about his penis situation, linking them all up w/ Dave and Donna’s story. Michael’s gleeful reaction when Dave tells them about Donna pulling a knife on him is fitting. As is his grin when Dave remarks that he loves her “wild streak” and that he’s being turned into a “bad boy”. Despite being a demon, Michael’s deviant behavior did not flare up until he met Eleanor and then it just snowballed from there. But Dave also responds to, supports and appreciates Donna’s efforts to better herself, and the same is true to Michael around Eleanor.

Essentially, M/E go through the same emotional extremes during the reboots that Dave and Donna experience in a more condensed form and “Earth timeframe” at the beginning of their relationship. And the initial antagonism transforms into love and commitment in both cases. Everything lines up neatly here: Dave and Michael, Donna and Eleanor, and the thematic links connecting these two couples and their evolution.

There is only one thing that’s v disjointed and that’s Michael’s abrupt “father figure”  stunt. This comes out of nowhere and has no place anywhere. It doesn’t fit his character makeup and it doesn’t fit his dynamic w/ Eleanor where she is always the assertive one w/ an actual history of “parenting” and guiding him in human matters. It also has no parallel in Dave whatsoever which is very odd bc they are compared/contrasted from literally every other aspect and Dave has a daughter. This relationship and his role as a father, however, are completely ignored. He is chiefly presented to us as the dorky architect boyfriend and it’s only his v adult relationship w/ Donna that’s discussed in detail (and many of those details are also present in M/E as noted above). Similarly, Eleanor is never compared to Patricia, all her parallels are firmly threaded to Donna. There is literally nothing to pick up on btw the Dave & Patricia and Michael & Eleanor dynamics, but everything lines up btw D/D and M/E, so…

“I would have been scared if she hadn’t been the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

[multsicorn]

i just really love this play alot ;) okay

Working on the theory that I Deserve To Have Fun (said theory has not been validated and is not ready for prime time discussion), I started watching the bootleg file I have of the OBC of Hamilton this afternoon.  (I downloaded it way back when I was in Hamilton fandom, before I went to go to see the play, and held off on watching it until I'd seen the play for Real, and then didn't particularly feel like it afterwards).

Some thoughts & observations:

[these got long and rambling.  lots of lams-shippiness and multi-shippiness, and gen stuff too]

* This play is really fuckin great.  Like, I've loved fandoms based around deeply mediocre and/or inconsistent canons, (looking at you, Check Please for the first, Glee for the second), and sure the hype around Ham was too big for anything to bear, but… yeah, I just really LOVE this canon, whatever its flaws, with so much heart, on so many levels.

* The staging!!!  I think means a lot here specificially cause I've heard all these songs dozens of times, mostly well over a year ago now, but - once in a while recently again, but in any case, I've done all my analysis picking over the songs, and they're inside me to a large extent.  Whereas much of the staging I only saw once, live.

* (And I had a close-up seat, then, which I paid lots of money for and felt Worth It, but I was so focused on the actors' faces, and so didn't read as much of the overall blocking as maybe I could have).

… anyway ….

"Alexander Hamilton"

* Alex taking off his white coat and putting on the brown coat Eliza gives him feels to me, this time, like he's leaving the world of the dead and coming to life.  Standing out from the crowd - of course - from the ensemble that's all wearing all-white - so he's Setting Out, etc., but also - they're back in all-white at the end, like ghosts.  So.  A sort of leaving the world outside time.

(Speaking of Eliza, there, I still always love the Eliza-Angelica-Laurens sequence in which they give Alex the coat, the book, and the bag.  MY SHIPSSS.  Such parallel!)

(And the bit where Washington's the one who's telling Alex he has to make something of himself! - I know I thought about and maybe posted about these things  back when the Grammy performance happened, but, Anyway.)

ALSO, also, 'you could never learn to take your time' being sung over Alex walking at a deliberately restrained pace to match the choreography on the bridge at the back of the stage so he comes down the stairs on the other side at the right time, is… funny.  Ha.  But the line's still true!  - And I just love how much the ensembles' dancing itself works as scenery.

"Aaron Burr, Sir"

* Alex is SO FUCKING EAGER it's RIDICULOUS he's like a PUPPY all like I CAN FRIEND!?!?

Burr may try to pretend he's not having it but he IS a BIT or he wouldn't invite Alex to have a drink etc. and… I love.

And then, every single time I hear the little line not-actually-exchange:

Burr: Fools who run their mouths off wind up dead

Laurens, in his first line in real time: What time is it?  (Showtime!)

Burr: Like I said…

I say, RUDE.

Although honestly - Burr is totally into Alex's ridiculous eagerness, like I said, he's coming closer, he admits something personal, he invites Alex out for a drink, it's not as obvious as Alex (cause he's just not) - and it's pretty RUDE ;), too of the revolutionary trio, from Burr's POV, to by their loudness and brashness and total lack of caution get in the middle of what was just shaping up to be possibly a Great Friendship.  So he can be forgiven for Harbinger of Dooming ;).

“My Shot” & "The Story of Tonight”

* As in most of Alex's interactions with the Gay Trio (Quartet!), I keep switching back and forth between LAMS IS REALLLL (it was, historically) (I wouldn't see it, though, I think, if I didn't know), and just ALEX IS A BI HUMAN DISASTER CUDDLING UP TO EVERY FRIEND HE MAKES.  Like, there's considerably More random arm-and-shoulder touching between Laurens and Alex than everyone else?  "You and I, do or die," (I do die!), and then they split up to each touch another dude, and in a slightly later verse Laurens is back again… oh, no, that 'back again' is "raise a glass to the four of us," BOTH TIMES, cause it has to be, ha.  You can say 'to the two of us,' Laurens, it's okay!  … But, like, otoh, "hard rock like Lancelot, I think your pants look hot, Laurens I like you a lot," is totally Alex flirting with these three dudes he just met all in the space of three lines.  It's great is what I'm saying.  Also Alex could use a positive setting towards people that's not 'will you be my friend and also get in my pants.'

The narrative of the song here, with the rest of the Revolutionary Quartet listening to Alex sceptically for his first few verses till they're impressed - I love the way that Laurens is his first and loudest and most consistent cheerleader ("shout it to the rooftops!"), hey, listen to this guy speak, the way that Alex LOOKS LIKE he's on a soapbox when he literally is, how that evokes the physicality of speaking to the crowd, and how his mind shoots three steps ahead of the present, and, yeah, okay, I just love the Alex/Laurens dynamic most of all, (cause I'm biased ;)), the way that Lauren's idealistic speaking ('raise a glass to freedom,' and, um, what was the start of his verse in My Shot?  whatever it was) makes Alex ~Look at him, and the way he's kinda just looking at Alex all the time.  Walking off arm-in-arm is SO they are together, okay.

(…. there are ten thousand more things in these songs, of course, but this is a post about My FEELINGS.)

“The Schuyler Sisters”

* The sibling back-and-forth dynamic here is just so freaking delightful to watch, it's so complicated, I can FEEL it.  Like, it feels like my sister and me (despite me only having the one)… Eliza going back and forth between Peggy and Angelica, how she's not just the middle sister in age, but she's trying to get Peggy to go along with Angelica's scheme, asking questions of and playing backup to Angelica, just - and the whole "mind at work" thing is perfect and Meaningful too, of course.  But what's harder to talk about here is the sibling dynamics, leading and restraining and following and conciliating, and it's displayed so well in the blocking and acting - and also, I can see how this Eliza falls for and enchants Alex.

Angelica has center stage for most of it, but I love the way Eliza takes center stage for a little bit - and when she does it's not about "work" anymore, but about HOW LUCKY WE ARE TO BE ALIVE RIGHT NOW, which feels kinda painfully and naively optimistic nowadays but… I do believe it's still true, in exactly the same way that I always did, in the same way that line works in the play, recurring even in the worst times.  We're lucky to be alive at any time - there's still so much good in the world, people to love, and work to do.  ("Joy is deliberate.")  And Eliza's pulling focus for a sec to be HEY GUYS ISN"T THIS SO MUCH FUN, before ceding it (joyfully, too, imo!) to Angelica's Things To Do!

Also the particular choreography of the way they three of them spin almost-in-place but trading places?  I can't even figure out what it is, but I'm obsessed with it permanently.

“Farmer Refuted"

* The way that Laurens, Mulligan, and Lafayette all cheer Alex on, and maybe try to restrain him a little, but mostly just cheer him on, is both super fun to watch, and even more fun if you have shipping goggles, so it turns into LOOK HOW GREAT OUR BOYFRIEND IS.  Fun!  I'm just saying.  Come for the story about ambition, stay for the compersion.

Also I would like to note with appreciation Laurens' arm around Aaron Burr at the start of this song, as well as his approach to Burr at the start of "My Shot" - like, dude, he totally had a thing for Burr before he met Alex, but Burr was Not Having it, too hotheaded!  Idk it just amuses me that's all.

And notice how Alex waits to jump in till he has his reply READY~, he's mile-a-minute, yes, but he takes the time he needs to PREPARE for that.

“You’ll Be Back”

* J. Groff is the one original cast member I didn't see, when I went to see the play live, and he is Really Delightful here.  Great play of the madness, the pouting, the playfulness that's actually danger, etc.  Only thing is that I always feel like those "da da da da" choruses sound like they ought to have a classic chorus line kick!  But you couldn't do that with a single person, it would just look ridiculous, and the single-ness vs. ensemble-ness of King George works so well for thematic reasons… but is it still ridiculous to say they have a chorus line kick SOUND in my head?  Because they do.

“Right Hand Man”

* I just love so much how they create an action scene in a song!!!  You might think it wouldn't work, but it DOES, all you need is a few lines describing the back-and-forth progress of a battle.  Just enough.

Why does Washington send Burr away?  You really can't tell!  And I think that works, that ambiguity, no one knows - Burr certainly doesn't know, so that feeling of unfairness festers.  But sometimes you're just not what someone wants, and I think history backs that up too…

That whole little sequence of "how come no one can get you on their staff" (it's one of those lines where the double entendre does really good work, cause WHAT IF he was saying that, right), from Hamilton asking "have I done something wrong, Sir," to making that Decision, with the chorus rising shouting in the background, "I am not throwing away my shot," but would taking the pen be taking the shot or throwing it away - it's the most fraught thing in the musical so far!  And that's a huge part of why I love this musical SO DAMN MUCH, in addition to the way it creates its own vernacular, the complex personal relationships, etc., is how the story of ambition and Doing The Work, is put above everything else.  A promotion with ambiguous risks and rewards Is the most fraught thing in life… the hardest decision to make… I love.  And how Alex wants to fight, and also he's wary of being under command in this particular way, but the moment, the very moment he takes the pen he's charging ahead nonstop again.  "Write to Congress, tell 'em we need supplies," of course all the work he does here is over-simplified, it'd have to be to fit in any way, but… getting support out of Congress was actually one of the more challenging aspects of the war, and something Alex worked on a lot!

Also I love the random shoulder-clasp between Alex and Laurens right before Washington announces Alex as his right-hand man, precisely because it's so seemingly purposeless, like… it's a congrats, man?  Sure.  But also we just have to touch each other at least once a song, it's like, required.  Thank <3.

And overall this whole number, Washington's entrance, etc., and… really just the whole play!  Yeah it's genuinely Quality, it's layered, you can talk about technical or literary aspects, but watching for the first time in A While and just being carried along by the spectacle as much as the story?  It's so Drama, so Extra, it's great.

... and this is only the first third or so of the first act, ha.  To be continued in another post.  Perhaps.

[briangroth27]

Legion Season 1 Review

FX's Legion, based on the X-men character, brought a fresh flavor to superhero shows last season; absolutely key to keeping the genre alive with so many series airing at once. All the acting was solid, the characters were likable, and it had enough classic mutant/human relations to feel like an X-men story even without the prejudice metaphor as a major presence. The production design was distinct and perfectly “off-kilter cool,” placing the show anywhere from the 60s to the not-so-distant future in the same way Batman The Animated Series blended the 30s and 90s. The direction and editing were masterful, seamlessly blending reality, memories, the astral plane, fantasies, and nightmares into an easy to follow narrative (if you paid attention; Legion refused to be a show you just have on in the background while doing other things). There were times the editing came off as just a bit confusing, with flashbacks, flashbacks within flashbacks, memory-jumping, hallucinations, and the like all happening at once, but that uncertainty served to put us directly into David Haller's (Dan Stevens) fractured frame of mind.

Full Spoilers…

As clever and ingenious as the visuals and editing were, however, I don’t think the story itself is was mind-blowing or groundbreaking as a lot of reviews have said. The first three episodes covered well-trod superhero ground: a shadowy government organization chasing/studying David, a “school” where he’s taken to learn about and control his powers, a mysterious villain who wants to use him for its own nefarious purposes, etc. It felt a lot like the setup of the first X-men film, swapping jumbled memories for confused flashbacks and the Demon with Yellow Eyes (Quinton Boisclair) for Sabretooth/Magneto (with Stryker’s military attack force from X2 thrown in for good measure). Once the show got to episode four, however, the focus on the villain and their unique plan of attack spun the show in another, much more original direction. It seemed to really take off at that point and didn’t stop till the finale.

David Haller is a compelling lead and brought a good balance of fun (though not one-liners or laugh-out-loud comedy) and bewilderment to what was going on around and within him. Stevens made what could've easily been a campy or "kooky" performance feel real, but not like he was asking for our pity. I also thought he was a good romantic lead and his relationship with Syd (Rachel Keller) felt real, even though we only saw them together for a short time. When he needed to be—when the Shadow King is in control—he’s also very unnerving, slaughtering Division 3 agents left and right with a smile. I will say David never seemed crazy to me. Maybe it’s because I knew he had telepathy and wasn’t just hearing voices, but outside of an inability to keep a handle on when "now" is he seemed relatively healthy. Perhaps that’s because mentally ill people in shows are often portrayed more over the top than David was. For a good chunk of the season, I thought this might be the story of how he goes insane. I later thought Lenny was sticking around because he was absorbing the powers and personalities of the people around him (providing the comics’ David’s multiple personalities with different abilities), but it doesn’t look like the show is going that route yet. I’m glad they never made everyone a personality of David’s, though; it seemed like that would be too easy and maybe of a waste of all these new characters. They did, however, homage that with David talking to his rational side in a great nod to his comics’ dissociative disorder (and his British accent!), giving us his origin story and the backstory on the Shadow King via animation. Now that he’s free of Farouk, I can’t wait to see how David responds to being alone in his head for the first time in his life.

I called Shadow King/Ahmal Farouk as the main villain after the first episode, but was thrown off the trail for a while since one of the few things I knew about comics Legion is he’s got dissociative identity disorder; I thought the Demon with the Yellow Eyes might be a different personality of David’s. Nevertheless, this was my favorite depiction of the Shadow King so far and I loved how creepy they were willing to go with his various personas, particularly the World’s Angriest Boy in the World (Devyn Dalton). I’ve wanted a Shadow King appearance in live action X-media for years and this was an excellent introduction! Aubrey Plaza was fantastic as his favorite form, Lenny, and her ability to pinball from friendly to insane to creepy to funny was a highlight of the series. I loved that his backstory was more or less taken directly from the comics, and Xavier’s destruction of his body made revenge via stealing David’s the perfect plan. They did a great job giving David, who has so many powers, more than an equal as his nemesis. I did expect more from the Shadow King trying to fight for David’s body in the finale, but now that the internal conflict has been made external, I can’t wait to see what he does next. His escape from the facility, leaping from body to body, reminded me of the 90′s X-men Animated Series. I hope he’s off to track down Xavier next season.

The supporting cast felt authentically "off" and not like they were trying to be quirky or "insane" or anything. Over the course of just eight episodes, it was difficult to find time to explore most of them in great depth, but I enjoyed just about all of them and loved that the show never shied away from the presence and use of their powers. It was great that they used them in concert to free themselves from David’s mind; I love the X-men movies, but the times when their specific powers are needed and fit together to save the day have been few and far between. Thematically it’s stronger if your pseudo-family unit is the only one that can help work you out of whatever situation you’re in, rather than just any strong guy (sorry, Guido).

The best-developed and most likable of the supporting characters was Sydney Barrett. I loved Syd explaining how she sees the world and her concept of the soul thanks to her ability to swap bodies with people. It's always fascinating to me when superhero stories show us how the characters' outlooks are changed by their powers, so this was gold to me. Her talk with David about being in each other's bodies was fun and sweet, and allowing them to be intimate on the astral plane was a clever workaround to her inability to touch anyone. The one issue I had with Syd’s character was that it was a little unclear how her body-swapping worked, particularly when it appeared that her physical form would snap back to wherever her swapping partner was, rather than just her consciousness jumping back and forth.

I initially thought Carey (Bill Irwin) came off as crazy for the sake of being crazy, with him saying random words to "himself" that confused David, but I eventually enjoyed the unorthodox relationship he had with his other half, Kerry (Amber Midthunder). Kerry not knowing about the most basic components of human existence because she spends so much time inside Carey felt like a classic bit of X-men weirdness. The personality difference between them also felt note-perfect, as if Kerry took all the fight and assertiveness while Carey housed all the brains and trepidation from a single personality. Once Kerry decided she didn’t want to go back inside Carey, their relationship got even more interesting!

Jeremie Harris’ Ptonomy Wallace and his cool, calm attitude was a smart balance to the near-insanity of the other characters. His Inception-like dream navigating powers were cool and, given their low-tech application, allowed the show to use them often. I would’ve liked to get to know him better, so hopefully we will in Season 2. Melanie Bird (Jean Smart) was a solid Xavier stand-in for this mutant cell, but I wonder if her comment about humans being dinosaurs and going extinct in the face of mutants’ rise wasn’t just bravado, but a hint at something darker. I wouldn’t mind a twist where this team ended up being more in line with the Brotherhood than the X-men, or occupied a gray area between the two. Bird’s strained relationship with her husband Oliver (Jemaine Clement) was a tragic addition to the show and I hope that gets explored further next season. Oliver was an unorthodox delight, having spent so many years locked on the astral plane that he’d lost touch with reality. His interactions with everyone were fun, and I can’t wait to see him and Aubrey Plaza share scenes now that Farouk is in his head!

It was clever that all the heroes’ powers reflected the Shadow King in one way or another, but I wonder why it wasn’t made a bigger deal. We could’ve at least had a conversation between David and Carey/Kerry about living with another consciousness inside you. Maybe we could’ve gotten Kerry's perspective on being the other consciousness. Oliver being trapped in the Astral Plane as opposed to his body paralleled Farouk nicely and foreshadowed their eventual bond. Syd swapping bodies also reflected Farouk, so his opinion of her take on the soul would’ve been interesting to get. More importantly, her history with her mother’s boyfriend was a lot darker than I expected, and it’s essentially the same thing Farouk has been doing to David: stealing a body for his own purposes. Is it any better that Syd’s heist was only temporary? Ptonomy having the power to jump into other people's memories and the freedom to bypass boundaries could’ve given us insight into Farouk. Perhaps David will look for ways to get inside Farouk’s head next season and these parallels can be utilized then.

While the main mutants were engaging, if a little unexplored due to time constraints, the humans didn’t fare nearly as well. When she was kidnapped, I wasn’t concerned for David’s sister Amy (Katie Asleton) at all; her rescue seemed inevitable and I didn’t feel like I knew her well enough to be invested beyond “she’s a human in danger.” The government bad guys felt like stock X-men bad guys, and while that was fine for the pilot, they never really came together as a real threat or sympathetic on their own merits. David’s effortless thrashing of the entire Division 3 when he went to save his sister (and later, another squad of them at the end of the season) proved they aren’t any threat to the mutants. The Eye (Mackenzie Gray) was suitably imposing (if underutilized), but unless his power is “sensing astral projections,” I couldn’t tell you what his ability was. I wish they’d done more with him; killing him felt like a waste. Clark’s (Hamish Linklater) last-minute catch-up while we watched him heal from his injuries and learned about his family didn’t endear him to me (it was just too little, too late). I also don’t buy at all that we’d been watching David with the team for the several months to a year it must’ve taken Clark to recuperate from his injuries; it felt like the season happened over the course of maybe two weeks. Still, Clark agreeing to help the mutants against Farouk was an unexpected and enjoyable moment of common sense. I admired his rationality in that moment. I wonder if they’d spin mutant/human relations in a much less antagonistic direction then we normally see in X-men stories. In their earliest adventures (and First Class), at least some government agents were willing to work with them, so perhaps that’s where this is going.Maybe with more time to get to know Clark and his family, he’d be more sympathetic.

All in all, this was a solid season that really became something unique after episode 3, so I'm absolutely down for season 2. Using a typical superhero “recruit the hero, save the girl” setup to springboard into a battle for David’s psyche was a genius twist and propelled the show into unexplored territory. Few shows have the guts to go completely bonkers and still (a) make sense and (b) fully commit to the insanity, and this one absolutely did. Every single week my sister would text me going “why is Legion so WEIRD?” and she was absolutely right, in the best way. There were some standout sequences, like the noiseless horror film-inspired exploration of David’s childhood home and the silent film escape from his brain. I can't wait to see what Shadow King—and Legion—does next!

The eight-episode first season is on Hulu, and is definitely worth checking out!

What’s up with the orb??

[ruwithmeguys]

Hi there jessica! Do you see a reunion of olicity before the season ends?

Yes.

…Were you looking for a bit more? ;)

Ok, but I’m going to add a couple of other asks to this because they’re very similar and no point writing out the same reply 5 different ways (2 have been in my inbox for too long, oops):

“Hello; read your posts, really liked your explanations but I’m worrying. I don’t see how Olicity could reunite by ep20! Won’t they need more time?! They’ve already taken so long. Since they’re following S3, they could sleep together, especially if they go on the run together. Saw a theory that they go Lian Yu? That would be interesting. Would fit with them running. What do you think’s going to happen?”

“Hi! There have been a lot of theories about Olicity this season. Do you really think season 5 is paralleling season 3?”

“Hey Jessica! So what do you think about the Olicity love scene being a flashback?”

“What about Oliver’s dark spiral? SA said he’s going to be resigned to his fate; won’t that affect a possible reunion?”

Wow! I see: it’s THAT time of year! (I’ll do my best!)

Here’s the meat of it: since they broke up, I have been 100% certain that Olicity would get back together but I wasn’t always certain of when until last October (2016). I figured they’d be sending the wrong kind of message to have them take 2 or 3 seasons to reunite; as if they were the type of couple who couldn’t work through their differences and that ONLY time apart could heal them.

Time apart – factually – would kill them.

It’s part of the reason why she stayed with him in episode 4.23.

But until last year, I was the type of reviewer that didn’t think or consider the content of the shows I watch. I should have done because I missed so many clues. I took Psychology (a lifetime ago and am rusty as heck so don’t expect any profiling, you’ll be disappointed ;)) and I loved English literature; I know what a thematic analysis is etc, so… shouldn’t I have known better?

I have my own life but Arrow – this fandom – is where I go to replenish, so to speak. It’s where my brain switches off. To escape for a while. But it became more than that during season 4. Suddenly it was this hopeful symbol; the idea, however naïve, that love prevails and that trust can be earned, that even when things look so very bad, they can always get better. Naïve, right?

Because then Oliver and Felicity broke up and my mind just kind of went… ‘what’?

Too much heart. Not enough brain :)

I was too involved in what I was watching and sometimes you need to take several steps back and actually connect some dots: I used to be so good at that. But it had been years and I’d forgotten how. But then I found @louiseblue1 and her insights; these on top of @jbuffyangel reviews and her fabulous way of understanding narrative flows, Cali’s knack for hitting the head of every nail out there and @dust2dust34 @so-caffeinated natural understanding of Oliver Queen, gave me a kind of swift subconscious kick to the head that I needed to pull back a bit and really look at the show the way it needed to be looked at.

(I will fully admit that I’ve needed Bre and @callistawolf to bring me back from a major huff and puff once or twice this year too;))

I say this because I want you to understand that I’m just going off what I now see. I may not be right. But until proven otherwise, I’m sticking to the near-invisible threads we’ve been watching so far this season.

Do I think they’ll reunite by season end? Yes. Absolutely. Since Diggle asked Oliver that question in episode 1, about whether his life would personally involve Felicity Smoak in future (OF COURSE IT WILL), to which he answered ‘I don’t know’.

Since then.

There are other reasons why I do but as the above questions don’t ask for them, I’m going to save you the many pages I’d write about them ;)

Okay! *rubs hands together* episode 20…

Why are people assuming they WILL reunite episode 20?

Has there been a spoiler saying they will?

I’d LOVE it but I think we’ve learned pretty damn well that expecting anything to happen will only end in disappointment.

Just because its episode 20, it doesn’t mean they’re following season 3 to the letter. I’ve had a few asks that have made it very clear to me that people are expecting a LITERAL – not just a figurative – 3.20 parallel for episode 5.20.

Please don’t.

Season 5’s parallels to season 3 are absolutely present and we should pay attention to them but they also haven’t been quite so obvious thus far as to copy season 3’s progression.

The obvious parallel is that Felicity is – in a different kind of slide into darkness – sort of doing a ‘season 3 Oliver Queen’. But mostly, it’s been in the little things. And the symbolic things.

For instance, I highly doubt O + F are going to go away together to someplace in episode 20, have some life affirming sex (I’D LOVE IT THOUGH), say I love you and have Oliver leave her to face her horrible fate… just like a 3.20 parallel. Like a copy and paste, just switching character placements.

I don’t think I like that idea. It feels cheap. This deserves to be handled properly; no rushing.

For one thing, from the spoilers, I think they’re trapped – not necessarily running - and the team needs to save them (remember that pick of Echo propelling down that shaft?). I think they’ll be alone together.

As I theorized in my post (an hour or a day), I think they’re going to air everything out in this episode. Big time. They’ll have no choice because they’re trapped but to face each other. They’ll have no choice because with out it, moving forwards will be impossible for them. And though I have no idea what would come of it I do know that by itself is supremely different to what happened with them 3.20. That was an ‘I love you’ and a ‘goodbye’. A physical representation of repressed feelings coming to the surface.

Oliver and Felicity have always been magical at communicating without words, which was why sex was the obvious conclusion in 3.20.

But THIS time? They NEED to flipping talk.

And sometimes? Talking is an intimacy – and an openness - unto itself that even sex cannot reach.

I think they need to reach that final level with each other; the level where two people meet in the center and understand each other completely. They’re going to connect. Really connect, one soul to another (cheesy I know), or that’s what I hope for. I mean, there really is no other choice for these two.

They’ve ruined each other for anyone else.

Felicity found a boyfriend in Billy, because it wasn’t a chance to take (she wasn’t risking her heart, she was defending it); he was an escape option and a shield. It was her saying ‘look how fine I am’? ‘I’m absolutely over Oliver Queen’. ‘He can do whatever he likes too’. ‘No I don’t think about him every second of the day’…

It’s human. And it’s painful. And it’s sad. It’s natural. It tells us just how much she isn’t passed it all.

Oliver found Snoozan who, like Billy, doesn’t quite fit the title of girlfriend.

Neither Oliver or Felicity – or ANY other character – has really been able to refer to Billy/Snoozan as their boyfriend/girlfriend respectively which delights me.

Oliver has been routine in his belief that he isn’t good enough for Felicity since season 3 (a bit of 2 as well), so he settled for whatever life threw at him this year (HIS WORDS IN EPSIDOE 5). Life threw Snoozan at him and he went along for the ride.

Wow.

Both Felicity and Oliver developed feelings for these two but I promise you now, those feelings aren’t lasting. Nor are they romantic love.

They’re both these tools for O + F to try with.

These attempts failed horrifically.

Billy was killed by Oliver, a deliberate attempt of Adrian’s to prove him the monster he keeps inferring he is and Snoozan and Oliver broke because of secrets he refused to share hoping she’d just believe in him anyway.

Which she didn’t.

(Funny, we all thought Oliver would tell her his secret etc but he didn’t even come close and he CHOOSE that; it’s why he questions what he was even thinking getting involved with her. I’ll tell you Oliver; you were lonely and desperate for someone to see a man instead of the monster you think you are. Poor guy.)

Because, when you spend enough time with someone you develop feelings for them. It’s only natural. But it also makes me feel sorry for Billy and Snoozan (not really) because neither Oliver nor Felicity chose them because they were attracted to them, or because they were tempted, or because they even liked them.

Felicity was hiding. Oliver was settling. Both were looking for comfort.

How flattering.

Which ultimately makes both these relationships utterly unimportant.

AND it explains how stiff Oliver was after sleeping with Snoozan and the feeling that Felicity wasn’t completely present with Billy after they’d done the same.

Now timing has been ridiculous on this show; sometimes the pacing makes sense, sometimes it doesn’t. Maybe the flashback will explain more as to the why’s of their behaviour. But, really, one episode is all they need. OF COURSE THERE’S TIME.

Olicity has spent the season decidedly NOT talking. And it HAS to be for a reason. They used to always talk. Now they don’t. Why did they make that choice? A choice that has obviously hurt them both.

Just as the flashback sex HAS to be for a reason. As great as it is that they will show this, they wouldn’t do it without a reason. I’m guessing that whatever happened between them between S4 and 5, explains their behaviour this season. There’s been a ‘we’re completely fine’ air about them both that feels off (we know SA and EBR are fab actors so this is deliberate). Eventually ‘fine’ won’t cut it for either of them.

They’re already coming close to their attempt at pretending that they’re fine, shattering into little pieces.

BRING.IT. ON.

We’re already seeing the signs in episodes 15 and 16.

Notice Felicity’s physical and verbal responses to him? They’re a bit softer. There’s a lack of defensiveness about her person that made me grin. His focus on her in episode 16 broke through a wall and it surprised her. I think she’s building up to a conclusion.

And Oliver? He’s started concentrating on her again, directing his thoughts to her – I MEAN SNOOZAN WAS TAKEN AND HE WAS ALL ‘NO THAT DOESN’T MATTER; I’M WORRIED ABOUT YOU’ - like he can’t help himself. But his path – because of Adrian – is about to get ten times darker.

Like I said in my post, I think he’ll break. I also think there is a chance Felicity might too for a different reason and in a very different way. But in this regard I also think that, in this respect, she’s stronger than Oliver. Maybe she knows more than we think she does about Helix.

But him breaking will test EVERYONE, including the team. (Maybe that’s why episode 18 is called disbanded *shrugs*)

The sex scene being a flashback isn’t a problem for me.

But when I first discovered it, I will admit to thinking DAMN! WHY NOT IN THE PRESENT? LET THEM VENT IT OUT! BRING ON THE SEX; ALL THE SEX!!

But… at this stage, without really connecting again, wouldn’t that kind of physical explosion just hurt them? It wouldn’t be an answer. Maybe AFTER they talked.

Plus, flashback sex proves neither could keep their hands off each other during the summer. How gratifying.

But I’ve also heard some people saying that their perception of the sex being a flashback is Arrow’s way of telling the fandom that Olicity really are a thing of the past. Dear God, why waste ANY sex scene on them if they were saying goodbye to them.

Why trap them together?

Why claim it’s a big Olicity episode?

Why would the climax of the season be anything but that: a CLIMAX. Something we’ve been waiting for.

Look at season 1: Oliver and Laurel, after spending most of the season apart (seriously, their scenes were few and far between and absent of romantic emotions) suddenly (because it was abrupt, no lead up or anything other than Laurel throwing herself at Oliver right after he lies and tells her what she wants to hear), have sex. Episode 21.

It’s VERY possible. Probable even. There’s no way they’re saying goodbye to Olicity. James Bamford even confirmed (last year) @jbuffyangel theory about them relearning each other. How better to know someone than to walk in their footsteps?

MG asked us to be patient.

WM said that there were some storyline they could only do if they were apart and they were obligated to do them, even if we didn’t like them.

Other than that, we don’t really have enough info to say for sure about what, when, where, how… and I expect to be proven wrong at some point.

Whether they go to Lian Yu or not, I’m also clueless.

But I want to point out something.

True love, fun and bedroom antics…

These are Stephen’s words about the nature of Oliver and Felicity’s season 4 relationship and they make so many things clear in where they may be heading. He didn’t need to clarify that: he offered it. We’ve learned a fundamental truth about our Captain this year:

Everything Stephen says is deliberate. EVERYTHING he says is honest (sometimes you just have to dig or filter or read between the lines):

He brought up the Russian Vodka sex, which I’m sure, was meant to be a joke (I thought it was) but we know has been confirmed thanks to JB for the flash back sequence. And notice how he behaved when he said it – the slight ‘it’s important but I’m going to coolly play off’ shrug thing and slight smile – and the way Emily looked at him, like she was dying not to laugh.

He brought up killing Billy BEFORE episode 1 even aired. Yes, it was another joke, but he referenced it at least 2 more times afterwards. And Oliver did kill Billy.

Bu that quote made it clear that their relationship in season 4 was fundamentally lacking something. The words are great but a relationship doesn’t last from embracing only the good things.

They learned how to fight in season 3.

In season 4 they learned how to live together.

In season 5 maybe they’ll finally learn how to UNDERSTAND each other.

It gives them room to grow as a couple too. It suggests that once they achieve this, then that will be it. When they get back together, maybe they’ll never break again (*fingers crossed*).

He also stressed that Oliver KNOWS he’s at fault for their breakup (to all the people hating MG’s interview recently where he said that Felicity’s lack of understanding is was broke them up, please be aware we only received a partial interview and that he was talking technically – Felicity DID break them up but the reason why they broke up was Oliver’s, that was the point).

Now, why would Stephen do that? Why would he also say that she was right to break up with him, that it was only choice for her to make? She needed to learn something this year and I think she is. I think they’re going to focus on this. Soon. Because they have too; they can’t leave this hanging in the air.

Stephen also said that we shouldn’t stop hoping for them.

AND he has said that there’s a reason for the way Oliver’s been acting this year…

So I looked back at how he’s been acting. He’s content in a way, but not happy. More brutal. Tougher. A better manipulator, lonelier, more understanding and ethically confused. Tired. Like a constant cognitive dissonance. Felicity told him that he was in a schism. He still is in one.

Season 3 had him choose between the Arrow and Oliver Queen. He chose the former. Season 4 had him discovering how to be Oliver. Season 5 has had him try to merge these two identity’s but he can’t because he has a third. The monster. Where every other aspect of himself is defeated by this creature of violence and death and destruction. The man we’ve been seeing in the Bratva flashbacks. The thing created from placing a man in hostile environments for years and having him claw his way out. Only, he never really did.

He never left.

I think that’s what Adrian is trying to reveal to Oliver; that his true self is this monster. Stephen added that Oliver will be resigned to his fate after episode 17. I think Prometheus is going to somehow convince him – manipulate and mind screw with him – that he can’t change his fate: a fate to be a monster who lives alone.

(Can’t wait to discover this secret he wants Oliver to reveal to him!)

This season NEEDS Oliver to find a way to merge his identities. To see the light again and I don’t think that’s possible without Felicity Smoak.

So yes, I feel very good about a reunion. Due to how the season has run, I don’t expect one until episode 23 but I do feel that episode 20 will be one for the books!

I know I ranted. It’s a problem. But I cannot WAIT for this episode (well I can but it’s very difficult) because WHATEVER happens - BAD OR GOOD - will be a culmination of the events leading up to it – with Oliver a broken and Felicity making morally ambiguous choices - and I for one am super excited to see how it plays out!