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[timepiececlock]

Fruits Basekt chapter 101

OMG OMG OMG!

Before he was banished to his own house Shigure slept with Rin to get back at Akito for sleeping with Kureno?!?!

Dude, Akito and Rin must have been young at the time. ::smacks Shigure and Kureno:: That's just not right.

But... OMG OMG OMG!

...

OMG MY ICON IS CANON.

There are just not enough "OMG"s to cover this chapter.

EDIT: So it was Ren, not Rin. ::shrug:: Misread due to enthusiasm. BUT ALL THE OMGs STILL APPLY FOR AKITO/SHIGURE! OMG! And Ren... that's just wrong. wrongwrongwrong. Apparently sleeping with people several years younger than you isn't a personality trait restricted to the male side of the Sohma family, either.

Does this mean that my theory of Shigure having slept with Akito was true then? Or was Shigure just promising her but not actually sleeping with her, and Akito got impatient and lost her virginity to Kureno?

"I do love Akito. Back then, and now, I love... I love her too much to the point that I wanted to spoil her."

Like, love love? Like the love Yuki feels for Tohru or the love that Kyo feels for Tohru?

Wow, I hadn't expected Shigure to have been in an actual relationship with Akito. Wow.

"Even though you hadn't realized it, I was waiting for that day." -- Wait, I'm confused? Shigure really was waiting for her to be old enough to love? Then why is there the image of him looking down at her naked in bed? If they'd slept together, what were they waiting for?

And damn, if that was the case then I kind of feel sorry for Shigure. Not totally, because he obviously misjudged Akito if he thought she'd wait too... but then, no, I do feel sorry for him.

So. Now we know why he's so cold. Because as a young man he fancied Akito as his true love and she burned him? And so he made himself just like her-- picking the cruelest person with which to exact his revenge. Ouch.

Now I need to listen to that Garbage song "Sex Is Not the Enemy" a few dozen times.

EDIT: Waahhhh. I just realized my mp3s of the Bleed Like Me album are all gone from my last computer crash. ::sob::

---

chapter 102

::reading::

Yuki/girl-whose-name-I-can't-remember are so cute. And the best-friend=whose-name-I-can't-remember is adorable too.

Comments

[umadoshi.livejournal.com]

Shigure slept with Ren, not Rin. ^^ The name similarity is a plague (although it's probably a very careful choice, to make the two of them just that much more alike in Akito's eyes).

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Who's Ren again?

::is lost now:: is that the teacher?

Damn, this is because It's been ages since I read any new chapters of FB.

[octopedingenue]

Ren is Akito's crazy-ass controlling psycho mother who looks a great deal like Rin/Isuzu (the long snaky black hair), which is one of the reasons Akito hates Rin/Isuzu so much.

Shigure & Rin have not slept together. Haru & Rin have slept together, and Shigure & Ren have slept together.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Ewwww. He slept with her mother? And then she propositioned him later in order to help Haru? Oh that's so fucked up.

I remembered that Rin and Haru were sleeping together.

No wonder Akito hates Shigure. Of all the people he could have slept with to piss her off.

still confused on one point...

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

But have Shigure and Akito not slept together then? Did I read that right? But then why the shot of shirt-open Shigure looking down at naked-sleeping Akito? What's that about?

...unless these questions are answered in the future spoilers, in which case, don't tell me!

[umadoshi.livejournal.com]

*wry* I always wonder if one of the reasons Shigure turned Rin down (other than the fact that there's no hint he doesn't seem to be attracted to her, and probably thinks of her as a child, anyway) is because he knows he indirectly caused her a lot of trouble by sleeping with Ren. Akito probably would have freaked over Rin sleeping with Haru anyway, but the fact that Shigure had set a very pointed precedent of sex=rejecting Akito probably compounded it. Almost everything Akito says/does to Rin in ch. 79 reflects that situation. :(

Ren is just horrifying. Ch. 106 is simply evil. ;_;

And Shigure and Akito did sleep together in 101, yes. The thing no one seems sure about is whether that was the first time.

nevermind my last comment

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I think I get it now. Shigure was waiting for Akito to grow up in the past and so Akito slept with Kureno so Shigure slept with Ren.

In the present, they slept together after the fight. The sex was not part of the flashback. Sometimes the way FB intermixes flashbacks with present confuses me.

[octopedingenue]

He slept with her mother? And then she propositioned him later in order to help Haru?

I've read those sentences four times and they're still not making sense. Perhaps it's the NyQuil.

Rin = Isuzu
Ren = Akito's mother

Akito slept with Kureno.
In revenge, Shigure slept with Akito's mother.
In revenge, Akito threw Shigure out of Sohma House.
Isuzu slept with Haru.
In revenge, Akito threw Isuzu out a window.
In revenge, Haru...well, we'll see.

"Fruits Basket" = most operatic soap opera EVER YESSS WE LOVEESSS IT PRECIOUSSSS.

Shigure picked the best or worst possible person to sleep with to get on Akito's bad side, yes. And it's not like he has warm fuzzy feelings for Ren herself. He's playing everybody, including himself. And it's not like Akito was being particularly sensitive of his feelings even though she knew he loved her when she slept with Kureno--she sees her Jyuunishi as possessions, not people.

Re: nevermind my last comment

[octopedingenue]

Haven't read that chapter in a while and too tired to find it and do it now, but yes, if I recall correctly. Shigure and Akito had not slept together in the past, but this time in the present Akito jumped him (with the sexy tie-grabbing) and they did have sex.

Re: nevermind my last comment

[octopedingenue]

Reading umadoshi's comment above, apparently it's not clear whether or not Shigure and Akito had slept together in the past. Ah, well.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Okay. I get it. I kept reading incorrectly. And the names sound so familiar. And they all kinda look alike. -_-

Akito slept with Kureno.
In revenge, Shigure slept with Akito's mother.
In revenge, Akito threw Shigure out of Sohma House.
Isuzu slept with Haru.
In revenge, Akito threw Isuzu out a window.
In revenge, Haru...well, we'll see.

Aah. I get it. That point by point explanation helped. Okay, that's even worse. Not Rin's crazy mother (she has a crazy mother too, right? Or am I misremembering that as well), but Akito's crazy mother who made her into a boy. Got it.

He's playing everybody, including himself. And it's not like Akito was being particularly sensitive of his feelings even though she knew he loved her when she slept with Kureno--she sees her Jyuunishi as possessions, not people.

This is why I want to feel sorry for Shigure, but at the same time I can't. I can't feel sorry for Akito either. I just step back and watch with wide eyes at the unfolding history of catastrophy and bad judgement.

It's kind of like watching Nip/Tuck.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Shigure had set a very pointed precedent of sex=rejecting Akito

Ahhh. So maybe now we're finally seeing why Akito won't let there be any couples around her. I'd always thought that grudge went back further, but maybe all this took place within the last five years, and is not that old at all.

Re: nevermind my last comment

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I still get the feeling that if they have before, it was after the cheating stuff that got Shigure kicked out. The "waiting" lines in the chapter and the flowery romantic way we see younger Shigure and younger Akito together make me think it was innocent at that point.

Now I want to go back through all 15 novels and hyper-analyze every single Akito/Shigure scene.

[umadoshi.livejournal.com]

It's probably all relatively recent--I can't remember if we've been told how long it's been since Shigure was shipped off to his own place, so it's possible that the incident with Hatori and Kana happened earlier. *thinks* Akito's twenty now, and it's been almost two years since the series started . . . but I'm not quite sure. The fanbook timeline doesn't seem to go back that far. :/

I do think that Shigure sleeping with Ren made Akito's insecurities a LOT worse, but some of it is lifelong. The bond with the 12shi is literally everything she has, and so the idea of losing even a bit of their love is unbearable to her. (And there's been some very detailed insight into her recently, which is interesting.) Like everything else in the series, there just keep being more layers. I'm pretty certain of the connection between what Shigure did and the severity of what happened to Rin, but she's my favorite character, so that's part of how I filter the series. ^^

*reads other comments* I think it's safe to assume that Shigure and Akito didn't have a sexual relationship before she threw him out, but there're some moments between them that're ambiguous earlier in the series, like the way she climbs into his lap (while they're at the beach house?).

this is octopedingenue, too lazy to log out of RP account again

[sheep-gotohell.livejournal.com]

Rin's crazy mother (she has a crazy mother too, right? Or am I misremembering that as well)

Both of Rin's parents are...bastards who pretended to love her until she asked one day why they were so happy all the time, at which point they snapped and told her they'd never loved her and physically abused her until she wound up in the hospital, where they abandoned her. She's bounced around from home to home since then, staying with Kagura's family and with Kazuma and Kyou for a while. Did I mention her parents are bastards?


And they all kinda look alike.

They do, unfortunately. I'd put it down to 1/3 artist style, 1/3 thematic reasons (like Rin looking like Ren so that Akito will hate Rin more), and 1/3 the Sohma family members actually look more like each other than like other characters to whom they are not genetically related (it's true! they do! and I think it's a nice touch, if a frustrating one when they're all in groups angsting and you can't tell who's who except possibly from their hair).


This is why I want to feel sorry for Shigure, but at the same time I can't. I can't feel sorry for Akito either. I just step back and watch with wide eyes at the unfolding history of catastrophy and bad judgement.

I have so much affection for Shigure still from the anime, even though manga!Shigure and anime!Shigure are almost different people at this point. I hope against hope that his ultimate purposes will turn out to be, if not particularly benevolent, at least forgivable. (I suspect that even though Shigure is using Tohru for his own purposes, she's had more of a positive effect on him than he realizes, among other things.)

Re: this is octopedingenue, too lazy to log out of RP account again

[octopedingenue]

And while I feel sorry for Akito and think that she's a fascinating and complex character, I feel little compassion for her in light of the endless cruelty she's wreaked among the Jyuunishi. If her happiness has to be sacrificed for the happiness of the other Sohma, so be it.

[octopedingenue]

Yuki/girl-whose-name-I-can't-remember are so cute. And the best-friend=whose-name-I-can't-remember is adorable too.

Machi and Manabe and yes they aaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrreeee. I didn't really think Natsuki Takaya would come up with a viable romantic alternative to Tohru for Yuki, but Machi has pleasantly surprised me. I want Yuki to have his own happiness, not happiness borrowed from someone else.

I still adore my Yuki/Tohru/Kyou OT3, though, especially for the anime.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I want Yuki to have his own happiness, not happiness borrowed from someone else.

Totally. For the last few volumes I've been almost unreasonably happy for Yuki. Surprise or not, out of the trio he's growing up the fastest. He's got his own friends (as opposed to Tohru's friends or the Sohmas) who are wonderful and valuable just by themselves; he's got a love interest whom he's not shy around the way he was with his crush on Tohru; he's making up with his brother and he's finally becoming less frightened of Akito.

But damn, it makes me sad because while everything's working out for him everything's spiralling downward for Kyo and Tohru and the others! There's the whole who's sleeping with who and who hates who because of it plotline with the adults, Akito, and Rin/Haru; Kyo's time is counting down even as he falls more and more in love with Tohru, and Tohru is wearing herself into the ground trying to fix the many problems of the Sohmas and getting pulled further into their fucked up universe.

I feel happy for Yuki then feel guilty because he's the only one allowed to be happy at this point. Amd that makes it even more poignant because of the whole Rat profiting first/best aspect of the zodiac mythology. He *is* the lucky one right now, but I can't help but be happy for his happiness anyway.

[gweniveeve.livejournal.com]

Chapter 101 TOTALLY made me love Akito / Shigure. It owned my soul last year.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Your ICON owns my soul. >D

I'm not sure I like Akito/Shigure as a positive romantic pairing (it'll take more development for me to get to that point), and I'm not entirely certain it wouldn't be safer and happier for both to keep them fiercely separated. So I can't really say I ship the pairing (though I did write a fanfic for the two of them... but it was kind of anti-Shigure/Akito, so maybe it doesn't count).

But as a story twist, the two of them are very interesting. One of the cases where I don't have to like the couple as a couple (I tend to like sappy romantic couples) to find their role in the overall story fascinating. It's been hinted for a while now so it's not really surprising; I'm just surprised that it appears Shigure genuinely feels/felt for her. That's a whopping bit of insight into Shigure's character right there, of the size we haven't gotten for him before. In one chapter we learn why he lives on his own, it's confirmed that there's some kind of relationship between him and Akito, and it's revealed that he has an equally tense relationship with Kureno! And Akito's mother. That's more revelations in a single chapter than Fruits Basket usually gives.

Though I'm still not sure exactly why he loves her. The flashbacks haven't really shown them falling in love yet, just that Shigure says he is.


Anyway, I'm babbling here. Don't comment with anything beyond chapter 102-- I'm taking my time waiting for the scanlations. :D It's a long wait, but it makes it the ocassional treat when I remember "Hey, I haven't read Furuba in a while" and find there's another chapter or two out.

[gweniveeve.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, I'm used to keeping my lips sealed. (I had to keep quiet when I first found out about them sleeping together, even though I was really excited).

I found them to be an intriguing couple, in fact, I even wrote a crazy-long comparison with Heathcliff and Cathy from Wuthering Heights, which can be found here: http://www.livejournal.com/community/altar_of_akito/77234.html. It's weird -- I like pairings either to be fun and workable, or angsty and weird. I guess this is one of the latter.

[gweniveeve.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, and my icon was made by flamika, who truly owns my soul, and is responsible for my love of Akito smut.

[donna-c-punk.livejournal.com]

I noticed you lost the Garbage album. I'm uploading it for you right now.

[donna-c-punk.livejournal.com]

s60.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2M5UYEZ3994B20FB1Q001O5QNI

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

::glomps:: You're so unbelievably nice to me.

Pick something. Please. I'm having a Tohru onda moment here where I need to give back to the giver.

[donna-c-punk.livejournal.com]

You're welcome. :) I don't mind helping people out in the music department. I still owe you some anime OSTs. Naruto, for sure, I know. I'll get to them within the next few weeks. My world is super-crazy at the moment.

The Constantine and 28 Days Later soundtracks would be nice. I rather liked the music in both. You know, I had to watch 28 Days Later about four times before I truly appreciated the genius behind it? I know, I'm dense like that. Constantine, fuck if I care if it's like the graphic novels. I was on-board from the word "go".

old reply

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Dude, did I ever give you these?

Re: old reply

[donna-c-punk.livejournal.com]

Erm. ::thinks::

No, I don't believe so.