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@lingerie_addict has a really cool thread on ancient fashion over on twitter.

Those source links are here

cambridge.org

Youtube

ucl.ac.uk

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alla mingalёva

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There's a bunch of adhd advice out there that's like "people with adhd tend to work better under deadlines due to the anxiety so here are ways to artificially induce a stress response in order to get you to get work done" and it's like well what if I don't want to be stressed out all the time in order to function

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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.

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“Shigure’s emotions when he was told “You are a favorite (of Akitos)”… I have a feeling that I wouldn’t be able to fit my thoughts about that scene inside of just one Tweet; I could talk about it a lot. When the time comes that we peek inside of that abyss, the abyss might peek back. #Furuba”

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shigure's relationship with kyo drives me crazy. he doesn't hate kyo in the slightest - in fact, he pities kyo, and not in the condescending "oh you poor little boy, cursed to be a horrible, disgusting monster" sort of way that everyone else does. shigure pities kyo for the reason he should be pitied: he's just a kid caught up in a system so inhumane it can't possibly be survived without some seriously unhealthy coping mechanisms.

and it drives me crazy because - listen, shigure is the only zodiac member who's emotionally aware enough to see the other zodiac members as exactly what they are. he knows yuki is a severely traumatized kid who projects all of his self-hatred on a single convenient target. he knows akito is really a scared little girl with a raging god complex (literally) and no concept of a healthy relationship. and he knows kyo is a regular-ass human being who doesn't deserve to be locked up for the rest of his life just because some arbitrary system says so. he KNOWS it's stupid. he KNOWS it's ridiculous and unfair. and he has to share a house with kyo knowing that kyo is living with a sword over his head, hating himself and hating others in perfect tandem because he has no other way of coping with the insane amounts of negativity he's had to deal with his entire life.

but the thing about shigure is that he KNOWS all of this, and the same time he doesn't really CARE. he feels sorry for kyo, but an apathetic sort of pity, a disinterested "this is how it is. such a shame." sort of pity. in some ways he's worse than the other zodiacs because he DOES see kyo as a person, someone he likes being around even, but he still considers kyo below his attention because all his focus is on akito and breaking the curse. and sure, once the curse is broken kyo will theoretically be set free with the rest of them, but that's more of a coincidental side effect than anything. despite being in a much more dangerous and precarious mental space AND comfortably in shigure's reach, kyo is about as much a priority for shigure as ritsu or momiji.

and it drives me CRAZY because i think shigure does start actively caring about kyo as the series goes on, but it's hard to tell when that happens and to what extent. when kazuma told shigure he planned to reveal kyo's true form and shigure said he was going too far - whose sake was it for? was shigure trying to protect kyo, who would be hideously traumatized/emotionally scarred by such a cruel betrayal? was he trying to protect kyo and tohru's relationship, which was still burgeoning and might, under such severe testing, ultimately end up damaged beyond repair? was he only trying to protect tohru, who wasn't ready to be burdened by such a horrible aspect of the curse so soon, or perhaps simply didn't deserve it? or was it all for the sake of himself, trying to protect his still-forming plans of using tohru's positive effect on the sohmas to break the curse?

shigure cares about kyo, but they're not close and kyo clearly isn't a priority. he treats kyo like a person - offering him genuine advice, teasing him like he teases anyone else, even speaking up on his behalf once or twice - and yet he's too entrenched in the long game to spare much active interest in kyo. for a very long time, he doesn't care about kyo the way he cares about yuki or tohru, and it's never made clear when exactly that changed. and the thing that gets me about this whole situation is that right from the start, shigure is in a position where he can meet kyo at his level - as equals, just one human being to another - but he doesn't, because shigure is a chessmaster, shigure is someone who observes and calculates, shigure never steps in unless one of his chess pieces makes a wrong move and he absolutely has to.

it drives me crazy. shigure drives me crazy. this series drives me so so crazy.

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the procrastinator’s mind will invent distractions you’ve never conceived of in order to avoid tasks even a dog could do.

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the reason silco’s eye is closed in this scene is because jinx manually closed them herself. that shot from the storyboard just didn’t make the final cut.

jinx does this whenever she kills someone, according to her diary.

I was just looking to confirm if it was an animator error or not and now I’m gonna walk into the ocean

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well, I think they’re both really comfortable👀

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Growing wildly.

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Collection

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no! healthy relationship will kill the character! he needs an unhealthy codependent romance with a side of power imbalance to live

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rebirth

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You said I'm always strong enough to fight these monsters...But without your arms around me, how can I be strong anymore?

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Adobe is going to spy on your projects. This is insane.

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We'll show them. We'll show them all.

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