Tres Horny Boys Breakup

AlasdairToday at 3:32 AM
I don't think I ever asked
What is your opinion on the whole Shigure/Akito debacle?
Granted, I only know what I do secondhand because I fear no man nor spoiler, but
SorenFlyinToday at 3:36 AM
I’m not going to lie, it made me hate Shigure
AlasdairToday at 3:37 AM
That is so fucking valid
SorenFlyinToday at 3:48 AM
I want to explain it but it’s difficult
AlasdairToday at 3:48 AM
I can see that! <3 Don't worry, I get it
For my part, I don't like it, like, even a little bit, but I do think it's interesting and am willing to play it out for the sake of either comedy or just character study
I Just Cannot FUCKING Stand people who call it #relationshipgoals
SorenFlyinToday at 3:57 AM
Like I love Shigure, especially in the beginning. But he’s honestly not a good person and he chooses not to be in situations. He’s very manipulative and he wants things his way and he’ll do things to get it his way. He does things that no rational adult should do. It irks me in the same way Tohru’s parent’s relationship irks me. And it’s grown men messing with girls they shouldn’t be messing with. Girls who are in very unstable situations.
AlasdairToday at 3:57 AM
YEP, ALL THAT
I think it's best when used as a guide of what NOT to do EVER
SorenFlyinToday at 3:59 AM
All that said, the original anime Shigure didn’t show us the darker part of him. So many people are probably in for some shocks.
AlasdairToday at 4:00 AM
YES
SorenFlyinToday at 4:03 AM
And in this type of fandom climate and the cultural changes that have happened I don’t see Shigure staying as a favorite for many people. But he’s still so fun right now. And I’m going to enjoy him before I have to like... I don’t know. Remember everything. Canon sucks.
AlasdairToday at 4:03 AM
MOOD, ME TOO
And like, I guess my whole thing is
I'm loyal to my faves until the day I die
I can totally accept that Shigure is a bastard without excusing the fact that the things he did were Maximum Shitty
But also... Sexy dog mans
SorenFlyinToday at 4:04 AM
Right yeah
AlasdairToday at 4:04 AM
I'll probably have a more informed opinion once I've Sat Down and actually gone through canon
But I hate endgame Shigure/Akito
My real OTP is both of them/separate therapy sessions
SorenFlyinToday at 4:05 AM
Therapy for everybody
AlasdairToday at 4:06 AM
I like to approach it from an angle of "Shigure realized he was going way off the shits and decided to get his life together, move on, and stop treating people like things to move around at his leisure"
SorenFlyinToday at 4:06 AM
It doesn’t make it better but I think with the endgame being them together it was said that they both were working on being better people and forming a healthy relationship
I like your approach
AlasdairToday at 4:06 AM
Yeah I just Don't Trust Takaya to do that effectively
Like,
SorenFlyinToday at 4:07 AM
Takaya didn’t do much effectively except Yuki’s development into a bad bitch in later high school
AlasdairToday at 4:08 AM
It's probably me projecting but I feel really drawn to the whole idea of "yes, I've been a shitty person and hurt people, but having a wake-up call made me realize that I can always choose to be better"
And I do think that's possible for both of them!
Just
Not
With each other
I think they bring out the worst in one another
SorenFlyinToday at 4:08 AM
They most definitely do
And they know it
AlasdairToday at 4:08 AM
So WHY
(We know why)
(We been knew)
SorenFlyinToday at 4:09 AM
Because hets
AlasdairToday at 4:09 AM
Bingo!
I genuinely think that, had everybody not been shoved into one-note romances that made no sense,
It could have been genuinely moving and interesting to see how Shigure's best friends, the people he's been closest to since childhood, both refused to sit back and let him scheme and manipulate anymore and helped him work on improving himself
Not even from a romantic standpoint, just
Friends being actual friends who push each other to be better people
(Why can't this exist in harmony with het romances, you ask? Because we all know straights don't have feelings.)
SorenFlyinToday at 4:11 AM
I know that they do question his actions but that’s don’t like fight him about it
AlasdairToday at 4:11 AM
Exactly!
SorenFlyinToday at 4:12 AM
Listen..... if one of them would just literally punch him
AlasdairToday at 4:12 AM
Hatori is straight-up like "I'm not gonna Help you but I'm not gonna stop you either"
LITERALLY
A PUNCH OF LOVE AND A DESIRE TO SEE HIM GROW
SorenFlyinToday at 4:12 AM
YEAH
AlasdairToday at 4:12 AM
Listen
Everybody would assume Hatori would snap first
But it's actually Ayame
Because he's so empathetic and attuned to other people
SorenFlyinToday at 4:12 AM
Statistically, and it sounds stupid, but male friends who physically fight are closer than those who don’t.
AlasdairToday at 4:13 AM
His emotions make it impossible for him to sit idly by and let Shigure toy with people
SorenFlyinToday at 4:13 AM
So are they really the best of friends if Ayame hasn’t beat the shit out of Shigure at least once? Gone snake and attempted murder?
AlasdairToday at 4:13 AM
CORRECT
SorenFlyinToday at 4:14 AM
Hatori too like
They all just
They need to fight
Conflict happens
AlasdairToday at 4:15 AM
I need it to be emotionally Fraught
SorenFlyinToday at 4:15 AM
But then it gets resolved
AlasdairToday at 4:15 AM
I need Ayame screaming in Shigure's face because he LOVES HIM and he CAN'T stand to see him go on like this
I need Hatori getting between them before he decides to take a stand, too
I Need It
SorenFlyinToday at 4:16 AM
I need Shigure to be scared of losing his friends
Terrified
AlasdairToday at 4:16 AM
Because he's always lived secure in the knowledge that he'll have them for life
No matter how bad he gets, there's no way they'd actually cut him off
And here he's faced with that reality for the first time
And it scares him more than anything else
More than losing Akito, even
SorenFlyinToday at 4:17 AM
But then they don’t call him back for once
AlasdairToday at 4:17 AM
Which is his biggest realization
SorenFlyinToday at 4:17 AM
They don’t text
They don’t even acknowledge his presence
AlasdairToday at 4:18 AM
At first, he's contemptuous. Fine, two can play at that game, he'll give them the cold shoulder and watch them come crawling back.
But they don't.
They can live without him.
And he can't do the same, not really.
SorenFlyinToday at 4:18 AM
It kills them inside too but they have other things to worry about
They have high stress jobs. They have lives. They have their own things.
AlasdairToday at 4:19 AM
There have been separations before, with adult life getting in the way, but never like this. Even if he didn't physically see them, he took comfort in the fact that they would be there in an instant if he needed them. And suddenly, he isn't a priority anymore.
He sulks. He pouts. He seethes.
And still nothing.
This isn't a problem that can be solved by waiting around.
SorenFlyinToday at 4:20 AM
Another shocker is when Yuki won’t even give him Ayame updates because it’s a serious issue and Ayame politely requested that Yuki not be an in between
AlasdairToday at 4:22 AM
Yuki's never been a fan of Shigure's moodswings before this, but this makes it clear where his loyalties lie: For all the tension between them, he'll always choose his blood. He's adamant at not giving Shigure a single scrap of information, no matter how much he yaps and complains.
He's completely shut out from the one thing he took as a given all his life.
SorenFlyinToday at 4:25 AM
They may as well put him in a box that says ‘Free’ and set him out on the curb.
AlasdairToday at 4:26 AM
He's well past the point of being angry. Well past the point of lashing out because clearly, the problem lies with them, not him.
Now he's just sad.
Now he's just lost, and he doesn't know how to fix what he broke.
He's never needed to, just left the mess for everybody else to clean up, content to be called a rascal and let off the hook.
Not this time.
SorenFlyinToday at 4:29 AM
His lonely forest house doesn’t seem so nice anymore. Hatori and Ayame took the kids (in the divorce) off on some vacation. Now he’s alone alone.
Time for some thinking.
And the echoes of the argument to haunt him
AlasdairToday at 4:31 AM
He tries writing his feelings out, but the second he puts pen to page, his hands start to tremble. Where did it all go wrong for him? Was it his harebrained scheme to bring Tohru into his home? Was it his reaction to finding out about Akito and Kureno? Before that?
How long had he been damaged and refused to see it?
SorenFlyinToday at 4:33 AM
Since the moment he decided to get weird about knowing of Akito’s existence tbh
AlasdairToday at 4:33 AM
Oh, we been knew that
But it's a tough gig having to realize you've been fucked up since age babby
SorenFlyinToday at 4:34 AM
But that’s the show
Okay but yeah. He needs to pick a starting point and start trying to figure it out and shit
AlasdairToday at 4:36 AM
Undoing all that breakage that's been twisting him up for so long, it's no small feat. A huge part of him feels daunted by the enormity of it. Why put in all that work, the kind that takes years? What if he doesn't get results? What if he has to stay this way forever, unable to ignore the path he's hurtling toward even while his own actions are bringing him there in the first place?
What if he fails?
Better to give up and not try at all.
But that won't bring them back.
It's like a toothache, one he hasn't noticed for years and years, slowly breaking down what was supposed to keep him safe, and now that he's aware of it, suddenly it's all he can think about. It never goes away. It's always lurking in the back of his mind no matter how much he tries to distract from it. And Shigure doesn't know how to deal with that because he's been stunted all his life.
It eats away at him.
SorenFlyinToday at 4:46 AM
Meanwhile Hatori and Ayame are afraid he’ll never get it. More than once they’ve caught themselves and each other going to message him. Almost willing to just let him keep getting away with it. But what would that say about them? That they can’t take a stand on their own with out their third? That they really did have weak morals and that they didn’t care for Shigure’s growth? That’s just not right. Because they do care they care too much about each other’s happiness that they refused to acknowledge flaws. And that was a big mistake
AlasdairToday at 4:47 AM
I just want you to know
I Felt That Shit
And even though Shigure can't know for sure what's going on in their heads, there's something to be said about having the familiarity of years behind you. And after a long, long while of just stewing in it, running a constant analysis in his head of what moves he can afford to make (it always comes down to calculation for him, a habit he doesn't know he'll ever be able to break), he sees there's no way out. Either he stays stagnant and he's trapped, or he throws away everything he's worked for up until now and takes a step into the unknown. Both options terrify him. But when he picks up his phone with purpose one day and he sends, "Ha-san, Aya, I need help." Just like that. Suddenly it means something. It could be any number of things, it could be just another ploy of saying what he thinks they want to hear just to get their attention at last, but despite everything, they're the ones who know him best. Despite everything, they love him and they want to see him change for the better.
SorenFlyinToday at 4:59 AM
What if Shigure was the one who always texted them good morning every morning without fail? And good night around the times that he knew they were heading to bed. He never expected a reply but that was one way he kept himself in their daily lives. And now that they’ve blocked him they don’t get those messages. Little things just make them wonder if they should just put up with it. It would be easier to just grin and bear it. Because his actions weren’t exactly hurting them. But they are. It does hurt them. Thing affect them. Whatever Shigure does somehow ends up coming back to them, whether its good or bad. They just needed him to get on the same page as them for once and when Shigure finally does get on that page, they have to be careful, because they know he doesn’t see things the way they do half the time. They need to be careful and see if he is up to something or if he just wants their attention back. They need to see him struggle for once and start working on himself by himself. But they cave and go help. And they’re wary at first but the results that start slowly but surely coming are worth it. They work together to make sure those being coming and that Shigure has the conditional support he needs. Not the unconditional that he wants or that they want to give, but just what he needs. Because the unconditional can be ruinous, as they had found out.