thoughts on something in ch 96-98 - loss of autonomy. warning for spoilers!!!
content warning for talks of violence on autonomy
a huge theme within Tokinaga's flashback for the past buncha chapters has been his loss of autonomy, as he loses control of his own body under Waka's wish and Nisroca's enforcement of it. (Nisroca also covets his body (the way they take his amber eye) and you could sort of pose Tokinaga turning to stone every time he uses the magic as a loss over his body too.)
while we learn from Waka in chapter 98 this result wasn't exactly the way she wanted or intended it to happen, the wish is still a selfish one she made that never respected Tokinaga and what he would've wanted. Waka's idea of love is warped and inexperienced. she focuses on taking more than giving. and fittingly a wish for a "forced love" comes out fucked up just as it is to impose in the first place.
but then in chapter 97, after consoling Tokinaga for sharing him the truth and his entrustment in him, we see Orokapi knocking Tokinaga unconscious, deciding to take his matters into his own hands.
and like?!
even if we are more sympathetic to Orokapi/Obikawa here, who we're shown he has Tokinaga's best interests in mind more than Waka has, I find this action still takes away Tokinaga's autonomy.
while we know Tokinaga is most likely going to tear himself into dust to fix everything by himself and there is nuance he really desperately needed someone to tell him to stop, Orokapi made assumptions he wouldn't listen. even if we can guess Tokinaga would disagree to killing Waka, he was never able to actually say out loud if he agreed or not. what kind of hurts extra is that Orokapi's action shows distrust in his friend's ability to listen about or discuss any possible alternatives. the snake god may be well intentioned, but this action will most likely hurt his friend. the most trusted person Tokinaga has at this point in the story basically drugged him and imposed their own will over his own.
of course none of these characters are perfect people. they are flawed and their actions are based on their own perceptions of the world. we could say Waka doesn't understand her feelings are inappropriate just as we can say Orokapi doesn't understand pure love is inclusive and mutual. and the current predicament all of them are in are a result of these actions.
(on the same hand for Waka, I think it isn't really appropriate for someone fresh out of highschool (18) to basically want someone decade older than her to reciprocate her feelings. while both are legally considered adults (in most places, at least in the story under 20 they consider her a minor) the experience gap is still massive and there is no power balance in this. for that, I also think Tokinaga should've put down more boundaries as the older adult in the situation here that these feelings for him were inappropriate. yeah nobody bet that the young girl had eldritch world bending powers, but I wonder if things could've gone differently if he told her firmly to stop. and in the end, the person who suffered the most was him who never said anything. but even then, there's still more horror in the possibility even if he actually put down his boundary, would his wishes actually be respected, or seen as an "obstacle"?)
(imo too Waka becoming overly attached to Tokinaga after Shion's death also shows her immaturity. losing her best friend is a distressing event and she is rightfully allowed to be upset, but her only ability to cope with this manifesting as self-destructive and becoming obsessive over another person says to me she isn't experienced enough to identify and sort out her feelings in a healthier manner) (yes i know shes some insanely old creature or something too but in this timeline she's still basically a highschool girl)
(plus in the current timeline there were some opportunities for Tokinaga to put down this boundary with not-witch-yet-Waka, but he didn't do so, and tbh I still criticize him for that, but with the newer context I guess it would've been hard for him to do so because that would not fulfill witch Waka's wish to free him from this entrapment. man. flub.)
speaking of obstacles, witch Waka kind of implies Tokinaga's lack of attraction (which I personally take as aroaceness) is basically an obstacle to her wish/spell. and then his feelings aren't respected as part of who he is and he gets this terrible arousal curse inflicted by the wish to "fix" him, force him to conform and likely abide to comphet ideas of love and attraction. and this destroys literally Everything
Waka literally destroyed the whole universe they know of in an attempt to force him to fit norms he doesn't, and even with the whole world reconstructed he doesn't magically gain romantic or sexual attraction. keyword gain, because there is nothing to "regain," he was never broken and never lost anything in the first place. he might've talked about feeling his experience was different, never experiencing sexual attraction of the sort, but he never said it was something he was discontent with too. he did not desire to be changed.
oh the horrors of being aroace in a romance-centric world...
I don't know how much Eno wrote Orokapi's decision with the idea it violates Tokinaga's autonomy at the forefront (because it feels so easy to brush it over, excuse, or ignore because "Orokapi is more well intentioned" from the story's framing), but if she did, I really want to see how she handles the fallout between everyone so badly.
this might be more subtext/subjective interpretation though: it is interesting to see the character losing autonomy is primarily a male character. the story could've held a whole different amount of baggage if it were a female character, because of unfortunately the violence women are more likely to experience in the real world. but there'd also be a double-standard if people take the violence Tokinaga experiences less seriously because he is a man too (or somewhat more annoyingly with ignorant shipping culture and misogyny if ppl excuse Obikawa's action bc he likes Tokinaga or overly demonizing Waka for just being a woman -_-). there is comfort in the subtext the horror of violence on autonomy can happen to anyone and it can come from anyone too, there is no benefit to conforming this violence to a specific gender or relationship. all it does is hurt victims further.
it does feel like a deeply queer story underneath it all to me. it feels like if Shion never committed suicide, maybe none of the spiraling would've happened at all in this witch-timeline. and while we don't know for sure if Shion's home life was any different in the witch-timeline, we can probably assume the society and the system they live in failed to protect her in the end just the same... and the irony Waka entraps herself (and Tokinaga) within this social expectation of what "love" and "attraction" is (probably without realizing it) to console herself, because her love with Shion has become impossible every time.. my doomed yuri </3 </3 </3 </3 </3 fuck man
disclaimer most of this is just my own take on things and what they mean to me. o7 if you have different interpretations, that's cool too! excited to see what comes next once the hiatus ends!
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