sorry I saw this official drawing and my brain immediately came up with the headcanon that Matoba never gave much thought to his nape because it's been hidden by his hair since forever but for some reason Natori got really fixated on it when he accidentally saw his uncovered neck from behind and he just got obsessed with kissing and caressing it at any chance he gets and it's driving Matoba insane okay gotta run byeee......
My homage to CLAMP’s minimalist sci-fi masterpiece, Clover!
I love the non-linear narrative, the way it hints at a vast and rich world with so few words and lines, and the patented CLAMP tragedy that they do so well. This comic has haunted me for years and it felt good to exorcise it a bit with this painting! Also I’m pleased because I drew huge CLAMP dudes.
"wtf is that book", "do i have to read clear card", and other questions you might have after reading holic rei chapter 58
this post is going to be under a readmore because it contains spoilers both for xxxholic rei chapter 58 and like, the entirety of clear card lmao
soooo the last page of chapter 58 of holic rei made me gasp out loud because i never thought i see this fucking book again
for those who may not know, this is the new magic book that's introduced in clear card, generally labelled "alice in clockland" by akiho (who does not know about its magic properties)
the most important thing here is that clow reed once had this book in his possession, and even he failed to use it successfully
i don't have a screenshot on hand rn (too lazy to keep looking) but he then continues on to speculate that it might have been connected to why clow split his soul in half.
if you know why clow exactly clow split his soul in half you can get a pretty good idea of what clow was trying to accomplish with this book (especially with the "couldn't achieve the impossible" bit): he tried to use it in relation to yuuko.
now you might start to see why i'm a litttttle bit nervous to see it in xxxholic! we already established that this thing can't bring yuuko back. what's the point? are we going to rehash that? try to retcon it? what is clamp cooking here???
now you might be asking, what does this book even do? so glad you asked because it's been too long since i wrote an essay-length post yapping about clear card's bullshit.
to summarize, it can rewrite time, with some limitations.
this thing's not exactly easy to use either, if you couldn't tell by clow fucking reed failing. at some point in clear card it's stated that it's been over a century since it was successfully used (until clear card's nonsense, of course)
in clear card, kaito uses it to rewrite akiho's life so that she's actually sakura's twin (but in order to make things largely the same so they didn't have to get into it as much as they Really should have, clamp was just like "oh she was sick as a kid so she had to go live with the great grandfather until conveniently around the time she would have become part of the story originally anyway" which really gives me a lot more questions about this altered timeline that, of course, never get answered. lmao)
the catch here is that he couldn't rewrite anything that was older than him. so he can rewrite akiho's entire life no problem because he is in fact significantly older than her, but her mom had future-seeing abilities and kaito is younger than her so he couldn't erase that completely, so the past/young version of her knew something was up. he also didn't account for the fact that the guardian of this magic book was fucking sick of his shit and thwarted this plan behind his back by leaving a message to sakura that stayed in the altered timeline.
and that brings me to my next point. the guardian of this book, momo (who i love very much. she's awesome)
here's a fun fact about her that's not relevant to what role she could possibly play in holic rei: she's [most likely] named after the book momo by michael ende, which makes sense considering her ultimate role in clear card's plot, but she has this name because akiho is a fucking book nerd who decided that was her name.
you see, the way she works is that whoever she's in a contract with or whatever decides her name and her book's name. now akiho does not have magic and is not in a contract with momo, kaito is, but akiho's mom gave momo to akiho (in plushie disguise) the day she was born, and akiho had no clue she wasn't just a plushie until after the timeline shit (they also never get to reunite after this and they just straight up don't let akiho express any opinion about this ever afterwards??? hello?????????????? but that's beside the point of this post). anyway
but because akiho had momo with her long before kaito realized she was a magical creature and got into a contract with her, and because he was raising her (yes, he's raising her. yes, he's like literally twice her age. yes, clamp thinks this is romantic. this is not a post about how i dislike certain writing choices in clear card so i will leave it at that.) he got used to calling her momo so once he started a contract with her she became officially named momo.
^ also. look at them. why would you separate them clamp.
anyway all that to say, momo is her name & alice in clockland is her book's name now but clow would have called them something else. don't know if holic rei will elaborate on that.
also here she is in her true form. the crown thingy is actually the ring from akiho's mom, lilie, which she gave to her for magic reasons or whatever (yeah there's a little bit of subtext between them but also i might be crazy. that's besides the point)
although when she shows up in clear card's special chapter (not physically, it's some kind of apparition type deal) she notably does not have this ring-crown-thing anymore. which makes me wonder if holic rei will answer why that is.
anyway there's a reason besides "we already established that she can't be used to save yuuko" that makes me nervous for her appearance in holic rei, and that's clear card's ending.
she actually doesn't show up in the last chapter of clear card (chapter 80), she's mysteriously MIA (and i guess we know why now ???) but the situation that makes me worry is as follows:
-throughout the story we are told time and time again that due to his overuse of time magic kaito is literally on the brink of death.
-he finally manages to use momo's book, which is an insane feat as we know because it hasn't been done in over a century and clow couldn't even do it. in any case this is a stupid big amount of magic, since earlier in the story he turns back like a couple hours or something which is noted as being significantly more than he had done before. then when he uses the book he's turning back WAY more than just a couple hours. he's rewriting several years. people's entire lifetimes.
-when the timeline shit is fixed thanks to sakura (which, it took her so much magic to do that that she was passed out for FOUR DAYS and a couple of the clear cards straight up died in the process) he should be in much worse of a condition that he's in, and he's only fine because his time got stopped.
DOES THAT SOUND FAMILIAR???
now i guess their sneaky little loophole is that they don't say "he should be dead" but just like, he should be doing really bad, but fuck that. like man, he was ALREADY on the brink of death before this which we were shown very clearly, he should be dead. what worries me about this is they're having akiho go "i'm gonna find a way to un stop his time and heal him" as if that's possible! as if that doesn't go against, well, yuuko's entire circumstances around her death.
which has always been extra baffling to me BECAUSE of how they implied clow used momo's book to try (and fail) to save yuuko. so when the chapter came out i was like "lmao they can't have momo here because she'd know this isn't going to work"
and the thing is, they've done dramatic irony with akiho a couple times before this
(this still makes me laugh btw)
but this isn't framed as that. it's framed as a good ending, like they may actually be able to pull that off at some point. but like??? they really shouldn't given. you know. everything that tsubasa & xxxholic established. and clear card is very much connected to these, given that the only thing that even really fucking matters at the end is that sakura has a second staff conveniently due to the timeline bs (and not anything she even did herself) so that when she has to give up the old staff she's not even inconvenienced, which kind of cheapens the whole thing imo. but besides that clear card has sooooo many tsubasa references, some of which i'm fine with but a lot of them i don't think really work in its favor.
so that's why i'm really worried about them bringing clear card stuff into holic rei. i can't trust their writing skills anymore. i can't trust that they won't be like "wellllllll what if we can bring her back after all"
i can't even be excited about the possibility of seeing momo again when she's one of the best things to come out of the trainwreck that is clear card. i'm like lowkey scared they're gonna use her to fuck everything up. please clamp. please
in general, i think clear card kind of needs to be quarantined as its own thing. i don't want that energy brought into their other stories that still have good writing. OTL
also, here's another fun fact: as of the end of clear card, all of the clear cards (except for one) were basically made to go be part of momo's book by the forces of the universe because they're also kind of forbidden magic like her book is (and whose fault is that? not sakura's. it's kaito's, because he was indirectly manipulating her into situations where she'd subconsciously make them in hopes she'd make one that worked for his plans so he could steal it and use it instead. but that's beside the point)
so uhhhh we might see the clear cards in holic rei? what fucking timeline are we living in
sorry this ended up long. i got nothing else to do rn
well anyway. my discovery of the day is the art of Jeffrey Catherine Jones! she was a trans woman who painted a huge amount of fantasy & scifi cover art for books and magazines, among other things :)
gummygunk
dailybridgerton
vaporwave
titsay
annaxmalina
kaledo-art
stormborns
