yukisohmasmokesweed

[yukisohmasmokesweed]

i watched the first ep of fb '19 with my gf last night (who has never seen it or really any anime) and was reminded how excellent the reboot is!!! oh we were so lucky to get such a great adaptation of fruits basket <3 shimizaki's yuki sohma is unbeatable and the soundtrack is so beautiful and comes in at the right beats. and it's such a great pilot! it's funny and sweet and sad and it lays out all the themes and motifs immediately while still being so subtle. wow fruits basket rocks

#takes a huge bong rip #hello welcome back to highposting about fruits basket with sophie

[yukisohmasmokesweed]

i can't believe i've overtaken shigure in age (i'm 28 now) i would simply not let teenagers live in my house

#takes a huge bong rip

[yukisohmasmokesweed]

*shigure sohma voice* i fucked your mom shitlips

[yukisohmasmokesweed]

hii as someone w selective mutism, and after seeing your post regarding yuki being mute, i’ve had this question that wouldn’t leave my head: were kisa and yuki actually selectively mute or was it due to traumatic mutism or something else? maybe i’m just self-projecting, but despite us being mute for different reasons (it is possible to have SM from trauma, though it is rare), i always saw myself in both of them when it came to their muteness (i’m really sad yuki being mute was only touched on in kisa’s ep and then never brought up again) so their characters mean a lot to me. just thought I’d bring this up and ask since there isn’t any discussion surrounding this and from the posts that i’ve seen on here, people just seem to go w kisa having SM (and by extension yuki) and just say that it’s canon. being the projector that i am, i also assumed it was but still never thought it was “accurate” rep but then again, does it have to be? regardless of how it’s shown in the anime/manga, i think we’re all entitled to our own opinions on this, and that no matter what we think caused their mutism, all opinions r valid! i’m just so curious on what your take on this is since no one mentions anything like this in specific.

hello! funny you send me this ask today because i just rewatched the first ep of the reboot last night for the first time in a looooong time and have been thinking about fb all morning! as far as i understand it, selective mutism is an anxiety disorder that can definitely be triggered by trauma, and that is how i read yuki and kisa. i'm sure you have a deeper understanding of it than me as someone with that experience, but in my research on this (which admittedly was a few years ago) it seems there is a variety of reasons why children are selectively mute, one of them being abusive environments and a predisposition to anxiety disorders. i would absolutely argue that both yuki and kisa have intense social anxiety, even outside of their mutism; and that yuki, aside from diagnosing him with something, is a perfectionist, and perfectionism often stops people from doing things.

i was also really sad yuki's mutism was only touched upon, so i actually wrote a whole fic about it! i think this is an incredibly interesting aspect of yuki's character. yuki in childhood has no autonomy at all: his life is controlled by his mother, then akito, and akito does not listen to him (or anyone). the other zodiacs ignore him, and he becomes tokenized as the rat instead of viewed as an individual. very often, yuki shrinks into himself as a reaction to this. he already has to keep physical and emotional distance from his peers due to the curse, and his oppressive home environment pushes him to even more extremes. i think so much of yuki's mutism is a maladaptive acceptance that he will never be listened to and that what he feels or thinks does not matter, and so he sinks into a depression where one of his copes is silence. even after this episode, he continues to be softspoken and keeps his cards close to his chest—which is why i love his relationship with kakeru so much, because kakeru coaxes him out of his shell. after meeting kakeru, he begins expressing his opinion more candidly and becomes openly emotional in ways that are supported by kakeru's view of him as a human being. yuki spends so much of his life being objectified as either the rat or the prince (both similar roles where he is being held to an extremely high standard that is only an archetype and robs him of individuality and humanity) and he plays the roles that are assigned to him. it is only when he is shown true love and acceptance through tohru that he can begin to learn who he is outside of those perceived roles, and allows him to express himself as yuki in front of kakeru, who never bought into the prince thing to begin with.

i think the other thing about fruits basket is that it is very tropey, and selective mutism in the way it is portrayed in fb is very much a shojo trope moreso than it is a real portrayal of a disorder. i don't think natsuki takaya is "trauma informed" as we would call it now, as it was written 20 years ago inside of a culture that notoriously does not take mental health seriously. i think yuki and kisa's mutism is very much a narrative choice, so i definitely agree with you re: what you're saying about "accurate" rep. anyway thanks for the ask and your serendipitous timing! thinking about that rat boy <3

#takes a huge bong rip #yuki sohma #ask #anonymous #meta??? #yuki

[yukisohmasmokesweed]

love your writing so much!!! would you consider writing more yuki/kakeru fics? Would love a first time story w more detail of them

hello, thank you for the kind ask this means so much to me!! i may in the future (like, years) but definitely not right now. i need to recover from the shitstorm that was fruits basket fandom and i'm focusing on writing in the locked tomb fandom now, which are up on my ao3 if youre interested!!

#takes a huge bong rip #ask #anonymous

[yukisohmasmokesweed]

oh shit i randomly started looking through my #parallels tag (which you should look through i was right for that) with fresh eyes after almost a year of not interacting with fruits basket and. the show looks soooo bad why did they make it look like that

#takes a huge bong rip #hilarious to make such a beautiful manga look like such dogshit

[yukisohmasmokesweed]

He's sopping wet. He's pathetic. His dick game is terrible. He looks bad. He cries at the slightest provocation. Hes trembling in fear. He's unreliable. His personality is sad, just sad. I didn't say a name but he popped into your head, didn't he? ☺️

#kureno sohma 😌

[yukisohmasmokesweed]

what happened to you ☹️

fandom died i moved to a new city and the pandemic "ended" so i actually go outside now. a tragedy i know

#takes a huge bong hit #ask

[yukisohmasmokesweed]

The only thing I love more than Hana and Uo's secret handshake after they chase away the Prince Yuki Fanclub, is Hana teaching it to Yuki later on!

#HELLO???? #this is so cute #these actors are adorable

[yukisohmasmokesweed]

some gaffs

#thankn u vita. #kakeru manabe #yuki sohma

[yukisohmasmokesweed]

a curious case of my arm catching fire when i imagine linking your pinky finger with mine

Chapters: 1/1

Relationships: Yuki Sohma/Kyo Sohma

Summary: 

Kyo lidded the pot. He didn’t move, and neither did Yuki. Though words sat on the back of Yuki’s tongue, a petty and offhand means of saying I didn’t know you bothered listening to me, the moment had passed, and they stood muted as they allowed the low sounds of simmering to speak for them instead.

And this was where Yuki expected it to end. It happened every time. The stretch of silence would last for too long, and, after making motions to speak but never actually carrying through, one or both of them would end up leaving the room in pursuit of air more breathable and less fringed with things unsaid and unknown.

And every time, Yuki realized the catch: this didn’t happen with anyone else.

-

Yuki gets comfortable with silence. Kyo makes dinner.

#abby feeding us

[yukisohmasmokesweed]

Hhhhhhhh TOMORROW 💖💖💖

#cuuuuute #q

[yukisohmasmokesweed]

Akito Sohma from Fruit Basket is going to super hell for being a bitch and for non-binary androgynous crimes!!!

requested by: @lonely-boiii

#akito sohma

[yukisohmasmokesweed]

shigure is a character who operates largely through obfuscation; obfuscation of his actions, his motivations, his true feelings, and beyond. he does this to build a persona for others’ consumption so he can better predict their reactions to him and make his moves accordingly. however, when you spend your whole life obscuring and burying your emotional truth, it has a resounding effect on your coping abilities and emotional intelligence. by obfuscating himself from others, shigure has also hidden away his most painful emotions from himself. in this essay i’d like to explore how shigure’s main coping mechanism of numbing himself manifests through the lens of his scenes in 3x5, particularly his monologue to hatori.

at this point in the story, shigure is pushing akito harder than ever before. he has definite confirmation that at least one zodiac’s curse is broken and the family life is continuously and dramatically falling apart. hatori berates shigure for setting akito off and asks him why shigure can’t be nicer, to which shigure replies,

you say that, but kindness from me is a hastily manufactured afterthought. it’s not as good as the real thing that you have.

this is a coping mechanism we’ve seen from shigure before: he instantly dismisses the prospect of any intrinsic kindness or goodness within himself. he believes himself hopeless, incapable of change, and so he breezily waves it away as an impossibility. this idea comes back at the end of the monologue, but directed outwards and pertaining to his own beliefs on the merit of kindness. 

shigure then starts his monologue, musing out loud in a way that he is only comfortable doing in front of hatori.

for some reason i don’t find it sad, but i wonder why…

most of the time shigure is an emotionally intelligent character, but he uses that emotional intelligence as motivation and a tool to manipulate. when it comes to shigure’s most traumatic experiences that are outlined in this monologue (his relationship to his parents, his curse, and his isolation), he is unable to access the feelings he has about them. he has protected himself in a way that caused him to numb himself, and while he has used that numbness to his benefit to hurt people he loves without emotional repercussions, it is still a maladaptive coping mechanism of a man born into a chronically hopeless situation. shigure is intelligent and self-aware enough to recognize that something is wrong, but he is too traumatized to access what exactly that is.

like, i’ve never particularly wanted a parent’s love…

we don’t know much about shigure’s parents. based on the one interaction we see them have in 3x2, we can ascertain a few things: shigure’s parents care about their reputation and shigure’s standing in akito’s eyes (“stop, shigure! pay your respects to akito first.”), but they don’t have very much control over him (“i don’t want to. it’s bound to take forever.”). based on this interaction we can assume that shigure’s parents were the neglectful type as opposed to the overprotective type; shigure has no qualms at blowing them off in a very blunt way and his parents don’t try again to make him do what they want.

as an adult shigure may have been able to convince himself that he never wanted a parent’s love, but that is antithetical to human nature. shigure isn’t some unfeeling sociopath—he has emotions and cares about the people he loves very deeply, but as a result of his neglect he’s managed to numb the part of himself that craves parental love. i think that this may have been a driving factor behind shigure’s obsession with akito; shigure could love akito as an inferior (with regards to shigure and akito’s positions in the zodiac), receiving the unconditional love that wasn’t given to him by his parents, and also as someone he could dote over and be affectionate with the way he is with his other friends.

and frankly, it doesn’t really bother me that i’m possessed…

shigure has allowed his obsession with akito to consume him so completely that their relationship has become his entire identity. he is lying to himself about not being bothered, too—it bothers him that he and akito can never be equal because of the curse, which is why he’s trying so hard to break it. while other zodiacs have rejected the curse and coped by becoming hyper-individualistic (momiji, haru, rin) or letting their anguish consume them (yuki, kyo, hatori), shigure has coped with being cursed by fully dedicating himself to it, not allowing himself to imagine a life outside of it. he has no meaningful relationships outside of the sohmas, he doesn’t care about his career, and he has no goals outside of akito. 

if this is what you call being “twisted,” then i must be twisted.

shigure is a product of his environment and he is aware of this. because the environment that made him is his entire identity, though, he has no desire to change. this is also another example of his self-satisfied self-deprecation.

and the fact is, i can’t even find that sad. maybe that makes me very alone. maybe a person like me really should have dreamed of…

here, shigure approaches awareness of the isolation that has been inflicted on him by the sohmas and that he inflicts on himself, then approaches the possibility that he could’ve been saved. shigure says he doesn’t care, but these are the words of a man so numb from trauma, a life of extremely maladaptive coping mechanisms, and never-ending hopelessness that he can’t let himself imagine an alternative; it’s too much. he cuts himself off before he can reach that conclusion—what if he had dreamed of freedom? what if he hadn’t chased a childish impulse rooted in his lack of free will? before he can reach these alternatives, he cuts himself off with,

but anyway, yeah! i’m not a nice person, so it’s a wash. you know?

he immediately falls back on his self-deprecating humor to protect the numbness that he has built within himself for decades.

with regards to shigure’s opinions on the merits of kindness, he continues,

a generous kindness like [hatori’s], or a detached kindness like kureno’s…even assuming akito wants that from me, it’s not going to happen. i’m not looking to become her father.

the implication here is that hatori and kureno’s kindness did as much damage on akito’s psyche as akira’s lovebomb-dependent brainwashing. shigure doesn’t want to coddle akito and treat her like a child the way kureno and hatori do because it enables akito’s abuse, and that enablement has turned akito into the worst possible version of herself. shigure is justifying his actions to hatori while also forcing hatori to face that his actions also have a negative effect on akito’s wellbeing, even if it’s in a different way that shigure’s.

now to move onto his exchange with tohru in the following scene:

maybe i really should have dreamed of you. maybe a person like me needs someone like you the most, the author finds himself thinking.

shigure?

i’m just playing what-ifs.

shigure has had a front-row seat to the positive effects of making deep emotional connections with non-sohmas. he’s watched yuki and kyo grow exponentially due to their relationship with tohru, watching as hope became an option for two boys who started off the series so hopeless. shigure has a very sweet relationship with tohru—he buys her gifts, she confides in him and he comforts her in return, and he admits early in the show that he likes her quite a lot. however, when it comes to the games he’s playing with tohru and the zodiac, he never included himself in the “genuine connection” part of the plan because his goal was to become closer to akito while driving the others away. he simply isolated himself further while everyone around him grew and changed.

but now shigure is second-guessing himself. he has this conversation with hatori, and then he returns home to see the tangible effects of friendship and openness, and shigure begins to ask himself if, had he allowed himself to, he also could have been saved by someone like tohru. it is a deeply sad moment of a man whose life has been ruined so completely by his oppressive, insular environment that the idea of change seems impossible, and even considering it at this point is extremely painful. the language he uses is also notable; he detaches his personhood from the thought with a glib joke (“the author finds himself thinking”). then, he once again changes the subject to something silly before he can seriously consider what he’s saying.

i think that shigure is a very misunderstood character. he is extremely skilled at hiding his emotions to the point where they are unrecognizable even to him. to add to the uncertainty around him, takaya purposefully doesn’t show us his backstory like the others. he is an enigma to the cast of fruits basket, the audience, and himself. at the end of the day, though, shigure is a member of the zodiac who was raised in an extremely toxic and abusive environment just like everyone else. he chose an unfortunate but effective coping mechanism, convincing himself that there is nothing else other than the sohmas and that the family and their values are an intrinsic, unchangeable facet of himself. shigure is a product of a long line of generational trauma, and for shigure it’s not something that he believes he will ever be able to escape.

[yukisohmasmokesweed]

not this being my top post of 2021

i appreciate the attempt to parallel but while kyo is, believably and appropriately to his arc and overall narrative, going to reconcile with the love of his life, yuki spontaneously decides to go to machi but he runs to her in the gayest possible way like i. when i tell you im losing my mind

#takes a huge bong rip

[yukisohmasmokesweed]

i'm not just an "apologist" for that fictional character i'm his defence lawyer

[yukisohmasmokesweed]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Fruits Basket, Fruits Basket - Takaya Natsuki (Manga), Fruits Basket (Anime 2019) Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Sohma Hatori/Sohma Shigure Characters: Sohma Shigure, Sohma Hatori Additional Tags: Smoking, Alcohol, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Angst, Hand Jobs, what is a fic if not shigure making weird power plays in the form of a vaguely described handjob, mabudachi fuck calendar cinematic universe Summary:

Shigure knows he should go home. He knows that there are carefully packaged leftovers in the fridge and a cheerful note from Tohru telling him she saved him a serving in case he was hungry. He knows that lingering with Hatori won’t take him anywhere he particularly wants to go, but he can’t yet bring himself to leave. He stubs out his cigarette and leans into Hatori’s space.

“Haa-san, can I have a drink?”

#amelia doing god's work