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 formulating 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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Okay, so last night I decided I wanted to do something with Vox and body horror and this story concept ended up manifesting in my brain. Massive CW for psychosis that's not actually psychosis, as well as self-harm and body horror.
Vox and Alastor meet in the 1940s while they're both doing electrical engineering work for the war effort. Vox is only 22, so he falls fast and hard for Alastor, who decides to use the younger man's infatuation with him to his advantage. One night while they're out drinking, Alastor convinces Vox to make a blood oath with him. He tells him it's just symbolic, but in reality, there's magic involved; if Alastor kills him, he'll get all the years Vox was supposed to live added to his own lifespan, which is dwindling. He lures Vox into the woods and tries to murder him, but is shot by a hunter who happens upon the struggle. Vox nearly loses an eye, but survives the encounter and is able to go on with his life, albeit with some pretty intense trauma.
Twenty years later, it's the 1960s. Vox has been a successful television presenter for 10~15 years now. He's rich and is married with children, but is less than an ideal husband/father. When he's not at work, he's usually with Valentino, a young male prostitute who he's been having a secret affair with for the past year or two. The two of them are currently somewhere between a sugar daddy/baby arrangement and a legit relationship. Vox is overall pretty content with his life and hasn't thought about Alastor in years. That is, until he starts feeling everything change.
At first, it seems like it's just a bad cold; his joints are stiff and he has the chills constantly, but that's nothing too unusual and he continues going about his daily life. But then the delusions start. Vox begins hearing strange things whenever a radio is on– words and phrases that shouldn't be coming out of it, said in a familiar tone of voice. He starts seeing shadows moving just out of the corner of his eye, but when he turns to look at them, they're gone. When Vox looks in the mirror or watches clips from his show, there's something different– uncanny– about his own eyes that make him feel like he's looking at a stranger. It must be stress, he thinks; he's been working himself too hard.
But things only get worse. Vox's body is stiff and jerky and cold– suddenly very cold to the touch, although no one other than Vox can feel it. Food and drink and cigarettes lose their taste. His emotions feel muted– all except fear. He starts hearing this loud, irritating humming when he's in the studio and it makes it hard for him to work. People are starting to get worried. He's acting erratically, asking if they can hear or feel things that simply aren't there. His wife thinks he's building towards a nervous breakdown, but Vox knows that's not true. Something's happening to him, something no one can perceive but him.
Things continue to deteriorate. Vox thinks he can hear metal creaking when he moves. His face won't show up on camera anymore; the footage always ends up damaged somehow for reasons no one can explain. He smashes the family radio in front of his kids when he clearly hears Alastor's voice coming out of it, taunting him. He asks Valentino, who hasn't even been to church in the past decade, to connect him to his childhood priest because he thinks he's being possessed and wants an exorcism— if the Protestant God won’t help him, maybe the Catholic one will. It still doesn't work.
Things come to a head one night when Vox, desperate to prove to himself and everyone else that he's not crazy, takes a knife and cuts deep into the hand he used to make the pact with Alastor all those years ago. He cuts and cuts and cuts until finally– finally– he sees it: metal and wires and no blood. He was right. He tries to show his wife but only succeeds in scaring her out of her wits. He flees the house and takes the family car: he needs to go see Valentino, show him, ask him for help. He crashes the car into a lamppost while trying to drive with one hand. A cashier working late in a nearby television/radio store tries to help him, bringing him into the store to wait while he calls an ambulance.
When the cashier leaves him alone to go make the call in the backroom, Vox hears it again. He hears Alastor's voice coming out of the radio, telling him that his time is up; he's been living on borrowed (or rather, stolen) time for the past ten years and now it's time to come join him, down where they both belong. Vox can feel his "bones" cracking, his skin stretching and tearing; he can't hear anything except Alastor's voice alongside the blaring static emitting from all the TVs and radios in the store. He's dying he's dying he's dying– until he stumbles into a fusebox and the whole store is engulfed in an electrical fire.
When the firemen dig through the rubble, they never find a human body.
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okay so. does rin know isagi and fujoneet reader have done it? does isagi tease rin about it bc he knows rin's a sick freak that needs a little prodding? does rin jack it to the thought of them together? or maybe just her? does f
rin knows because isagi tells him LOL. isagi sucks but he gets off on pissing rin off and rin in this context uses isagi as like. a buffer for his own lust towards you. its soooo weird LMAO. rin jacks it to the thought of readers pleasure specific and feels such crazy shame. they are so prime for cucking
but really in this universe it's like ohh. reader is so inexperienced and rin knows it though he doesn't do anything about himself just yet. and he just. nonstop thinks about her. thinks about her with a hand in her torn-up shorts and her face buried in pillows while isagi is plowing her, how good she must feel, how sensitive and uselessly wet she is. and it makes him angry but the thought of it makes him so hard
i think isagis torment is probably because he can tell how much rin seems to refuse to acknowledge his obvious want for her. fujoneet reader is really oblivious but isagi knows rin veryyy well and he knows all that bully is like a shoddy coverup to his desire about her. rin does jack off to the thought of them but it also makes him so viscerally angry to think of her weeping on anyones cock but his lol
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malos xenoblade is an insane character tbh… he is a harbinger of death and destruction. he is as evil as it gets. he’s cocky, he’s brash, he’s theatrical to the point of camp, he feels nothing but joy at destroying the world. he doubts everything about his existence. he yearns for love and connection. he would dedicate his life to another person despite being effectively a god. he would ignore what he sees as his own purpose for the one that he loves. he can’t verbally express any of this quite literally until he dies, if even then. literally nobody does it like him, i’m so obsessed
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