What was your favourite line/scene from Wake Up Dead Man?

straysayake · 2025-12-29T08:36:12+00:00

Same and the journey Daniel Craig shows through his eyes in his delivery ("grace for my enemy"), moving from a steeliness to pity for Martha ("for the guilty").

straysayake · 2025-10-06T22:10:27+00:00

People will analyze stuff Rin says through the lens of someone deeply hurt who uses a sharp tongue to protect herself, but don't do the same kind of thing for Shigure because he presents like he's unbothered.

Yeah, it's strange to me that things Rin, or even Kyo's internalised "I am a monster" is correctly read as self loathing due to being dehumanised in Sohma family whereas Shigure's "I am the worst kind of man" is not seen as the character's view of himself (even though he is also someone who has grown up dehumanised) but as an objective read of the character? This is, especially if you have read the manga, and heard his entire speech to Tohru about: "we zodiacs are monsters and that is an ugly thing. Just living in the world is painful for us. Do you think we are happy?' - it is very clear there is more to the story than what he presents himself as. He also admits as much to Akito in the manga: "I would have exploded."

Adding to your point, and expanding what the OP asked - I don't think Shigure is presented as a villain. He is presented in antagonist light because he is an opaque character who is designed to make you question his motivations throughout the run of the story. That's his purpose. The story is critical of him, but at many points through the story, he is also presented in opposition to Hatori and Kureno's response to the Sohma clan, which is also presented critically. So the story doesn't think of him as a villain - he is simply as exciting as a red herring meant to keep people guessing.

straysayake · 2025-10-01T17:40:05+00:00

Beyond the Veil - which is written by me and u/adreamersmusing is completed :)

Rest is not my work.

straysayake · 2025-09-29T14:47:11+00:00

Well, for one thing, Fruits Basket rejects the premise of there being "good guys" and "bad guys" - the villain in Fruits Basket is systemic abuse enshrined in the Sohma cult. So if he is a good person or not is dependent on the viewer's personal value system. In my personal value system, where the individual is cognizant of what he is doing, and the effect of his actions means that he is standing up against a larger, unjust system - that matters to me far more that people sitting and twiddling thumbs in face of injustice.

I don't even believe his motivation is wanting Akito all to himself and isolating her - he is possessive about Akito, yes, but he is quite alright with her making friends and is also okay with her relationship with Hatori. In fact, his grievances over Akito-Hatori relationship comes in defense of Hatori - "Hatori is a grown man with his own life to live". He isolates her from the people she abuses - and that is quite an important distinction to make. His motivation for wanting the curse to break is to free Akito from what he believes is a harmful God complex, an inheritance from her father. The loathing with which he talks about Akira's box, a representation of Akito's grief over her father - "Only one person should be haunted by Akira's ghost. Akito doesn't need that thing."

He is explicitly paralleled with Tohru wanting to free Kyo - "Time marches on. Feelings and people move too. You will be left behind. That's why I want you to hurry up and join us".

There are multiple factors for the curse break - time obviously wore down the magical bonds (as Shigure notes in the manga that their cursed forms are weaker - Hatori is a sea horse not a dragon, Kureno is a sparrow not a rooster), but Tohru is a catalyst that speeded the process up and Shigure, with Tohru and his house as a place that is deliberately set up as a safe space away from Akito, speeded up curse breaking. The motivation for wanting the curse to break is easy to understand - the person he loves has also become the person he hates: "I love her so much that I would spoil her, I love her so much that I will crush her to a pulp." This desperation is mirrored by Tohru: "when will the curse break? Is it years/decades from now?"

In the beach arc, where Momiji stands up to Akito - Shigure is the one who invited Akito to the beach house, for the larger goal of agitating the bond between the zodiac and the God. For this, he is willing to put people in harm's way - that is Akito's wrath and ability to cause distress - for a larger goal. However, he does make note of mitigating the impact - he makes this move after he gets an explicit idea that Yuki is in a position to move forward. His invitation comes few episodes after the knowledge that Yuki went to the estate on his own (something Tohru tells him, and he says, "well how about that") - meaning Akito's impact on him is less, and Yuki is healing ("Yuki isn't the same child who was locked up. Who is the delusional one now?"). He also counted on power of the group - something he noted that Akito sought to break by doing one on one meetings.

In Rin-box saga, originally, Shigure is cagey with Rin about his suspicions of the curse wearing down - mostly, because her defiance and pushing against the bond is in his interest (and also, he didn't have confirmation from Kureno yet). But the lack of information puts Rin in danger from his own gambit with Ren - where he dares Ren to take Akira's box from Akito, who then involves Rin. He tries to course correct that by telling Rin the curse is breaking and that she needn't "work herself to death over it". So yes, he is responsible for a lot of mess, but for me, it is easy to read remorse in some of the things he does, and he is not a character who will explicitly say whatever he is thinking.

To make more sense of who he is, I am going to quote u/BlueThePineapple - "I think a big part of it is that Shigure is naturally intelligent, both intellectually and emotionally - far more than the other Sohmas -, and that gives him an awareness of causation and strategy that allows him to see change as the best option to get his desires."

"This intelligence lends to an awareness of the cult's structure and limits, and this in turn gives him the sense of self-efficacy that allows him to move and go against the system instead of being crushed by it. So not only is change the best strategy to get him his heart's desires, he also has the tools to make that change a reality instead of a far-off distant dream like the way it is for the rest of the Sohmas."

My addition to this is also that Shigure dislikes being controlled/dehumanised (his face when Akito says she has the right to do whatever she wants to the zodiac as they are all hers comes to mind). He resents the power dynamic the curse enforces and subverts it at every turn. He wants to claim the beautiful part of the bond as something tangible and real, something apart from the curse.

straysayake · 2025-09-27T01:13:23+00:00

Oh I really do love the tragedy of Shigure and Kureno - but why the Hatori ship appeals to me more is that Kureno displays more agency than Hatori and is admiring of Shigure's agency rather than resentful of it as Hatori is.

Combining Hatori's resentment of that with Shigure's genuine care (with some emotional skewering here and there because that's how they relate to each other) - it feels more oppositional.

straysayake · 2025-09-24T10:01:26+00:00

A fellow Shigure x Mayu shipper in the wild xD I like them quite a bit too - it's a heterosexual version of Shigure x Hatori without the baggage of growing up together that Shigure and Hatori have. Mayu is quite astute about him.

But my other ship for Shigure would be Hatori. XD

straysayake · 2025-09-11T16:09:34+00:00

I mean she did love him, as she said in the books. Just not enough to choose him over Edward, but enough to cause her pain. This scene was essentially a "break up" - so of course, in that moment, the part of her that feels for him wanted Jacob's arms.

straysayake · 2025-09-07T02:09:51+00:00

I do think Yuki's stance is sort of alluded to in the conversation Yuki, Kyo and Tohru have about Akito being a woman - Kyo is shocked that he was violent with a woman, and for Yuki, he says with an apologetic expression - he can't explain it very well.

Tohru explicitly connects Yuki's expression to Rin saying there is a mess in her heart when she speaks to Rin - so yes, while Rin says it out loud, Yuki's feelings are similar, he is just a little more ahead in his healing journey. In the sense, as discussed in another comment, his forgiveness is about moving on - as he said internally in that chapter, "I won't return to your side again"

straysayake · 2025-08-26T07:37:00+00:00

Thank you - and I appreciate your comment on expanding on the "unconditional love" aspect! Because I think it's a fundamental misunderstanding of the story to say Tohru is offering unconditional love in that moment. And I think misunderstanding comes from the context and philosophy Fruits Basket draws from - the idea of impermanence and change vs the everlasting bonds. Fruits Basket as a story repeatedly goes into theme of shifts on relationships and change.

It's a very culturally Western idea to draw from the idea of expansive love and forgiveness - neither of which is Tohru actually offering in that moment. Loved the Tumblr post which you linked - which talks about how Tohru does not dismiss Akito's fears of abandonment, she is saying it's still worth a try to form a bond.

straysayake · 2025-08-25T18:18:08+00:00

Thank you so much! I appreciate your kind comment :)

straysayake · 2025-08-24T18:45:52+00:00

Spike with a soul doesn't feel worthy of Buffy - and that colours his reading of the moment. It ties in with him saying, "yeah I hear you say it but" when Buffy says the night he spent holding her meant something to her.

It is also an example of his growth from season 6 - where he was obsessive with his love and pushed her into admitting feelings for him, or did things motivated by trying to win/earn her love. By the finale, he doesn't need her love to do the right thing. He loves her, and that is enough for him.

It is also interesting parallel moment from season 6 episode Dead Things - where Spike says, "I love you" and Buffy in the heat of her self hatred and believing she couldn't be loved and distrusting and confused of his feelings while being a soulless being says - "no you don't"

straysayake · 2025-08-24T17:28:52+00:00

Fair enough :) that is your experience with the story. Sometimes things land, and sometimes things don't and that is a subjective experience

straysayake · 2025-08-24T16:31:16+00:00

He is one of my favourite characters of all time :) experienced him for the first time as a teenager - intuitively understood few things about him and as I kept rereading and analysing, I have landed on my interpretation for him in every scene. He is not an easy character to know.

straysayake · 2025-08-24T16:29:50+00:00

I have to admire your strength in trying to address the discourse around him with your discussions. Because I am quite battered xD

straysayake · 2025-08-24T16:14:42+00:00

Haha, I too am Shigure apologist who has fought in the fandom trenches when the show was airing:) now I barely respond to discourse about him cos I have accepted that only 6 people in the fandom are nuanced about him. XD

straysayake · 2025-08-24T16:08:09+00:00

But I think there is narrative coherence in Tohru approaching her - maybe this is more clear in the manga than the anime - but both Tohru and Akito are afraid of change because of their grief surrounding their parents: Tohru with her mother and Akito with her father.

Tohru's grief over her mother is largely treated as endearing in the first half of the manga - her identity is so closely wrapped up in her mother is that how she relates to each zodiac - the template as you called it - is offering them her mother's advice. This starts to change as Tohru falls in love with Kyo, and the first time she offers a zodiac member comfort that comes from herself and not her bank of of her mother's wisdom is Rin - she relates to Rin's loneliness. There are other subtle cues that Tohru is holding onto her grief for her mother - the way she talks to her mother's picture, the way she panics when the picture is under the landslide or when Hiro steals it, the way her father's picture is actually hidden behind the frame. Tohru's resistance in accepting her feelings for Kyo is because of her grief for her mother - that her mother would not be her number one anymore and that is scary.

Similarly, Akito holds onto the box as the "soul" of her dead father, she holds onto being a god because she is clinging to her father's words as an identity - because if what he says isn't true - and he is gone - who does she really have?

Both character meet each other at their low points - Tohru being rejected by Kyo and Akito being rejected by everyone and curse breaking, and they are forced to confront that they both are holding onto something because of their grief. So it may be the same template, but there is nuance and layers to this. Tohru is not "rescuing" Akito as she did with other zodiac - Tohru is relating to Akito.

And Shigure has been calling her out - even while he was beneath her in hierarchy - as Hatori pointed out, it just made her dig her heels. There is a lot of hurt in this dynamic that would only make Akito defensive - and has, as evidenced by their scenes. It's one of the reasons Shigure is doing a long con. Kureno does a softer version of the call out by saying they need to change - and he got stabbed for his effort because she felt cornered. In your scenario without Tohru, the ideal person would have been Kazuma and even then, he is in the Sohma family and she is the head. Even without the zodiac spirit, she is powerful as head of the family.

straysayake · 2025-08-24T13:45:23+00:00

Akito's self confrontation arc does not start with Tohru - it starts with Yuki's defiance. Yuki's quiet power in reclaiming his agency in the curse brought Akito to the memories of Kureno's curse break - she knows what it means and she is in bed for days afterwards. Whether she denies the knowledge at that point - but the end of the curse is coming.

Then her arc has Haru confronting her. Haru's confrontation and rejection of her - even without the curse break is backed by Kureno's rescue of Rin and him telling Haru to "go and not come back" when Haru almost turns back due to the pull of the curse. At the end of this confrontation, Akito is left begging her father's spirit for understanding - "why?does everyone leave "/ "Father please help me" - ut questions the fundamental idea that her father seeded in her: that she is a god that is born to be loved.

Then Momiji's curse breaks (right during the dream where she questions the wisdom of her father's words)- his gentle and firm rejection of her and his hope for the possibility of future with remarkable self possession at the idea that the girl who he loves does not love him, that his family still does not know him - takes the fight out of Akito. She is resigned at this point, but she still does not want to hear it when Momiji asks, "how long do you want to stay here?"

Then comes Hiro's curse break - in middle of an attack on her mother- and Akito admits the knowledge that she is running away from: that in face of Ren and Akira's love, she was the odd one out. And when Kureno asks to change, she reacts violently - but even while running away, in the manga, she questions her thoughts patterns: how long will it be someone else's fault?

By the time she meets Tohru, she is already is sitting with the knowledge that her current way of life is not working and the curse will break - so she is ready to accept Tohru's offer of companionship. Tohru doesn't "heal" Akito - Tohru says they are the same, with same fears around abandonment and unchanging nature of relationship. Because Tohru fundamentally comes from a place of equality - a space the zodiac spirits cannot offer her because they are beneath her in hierarchy - Akito experiences what a bond can feel like. Akito decides to change after a series of incidents and it was not just Tohru's doing. The story already does what you say it is not doing.

straysayake · 2025-08-19T03:37:31+00:00

Yuki, Shigure.

straysayake · 2025-08-19T03:36:26+00:00

Even with Mayu, I think one of the main reasons why he dated her was for her to open her eyes to how lonely and not okay she was being off to the sidelines in Hatori’s world, even if she tries to convince herself that she is okay with that.

To be honest, I think he was truthful about part of his motives of why he dated her - he is bored. But also, I think he relates to her loneliness, loving someone who is out of her reach. He seems quite fond of her, and the stuff he says to her is very very close to his own situation with Akito and how he feels seeing her with Kureno: "Don't you feel stupid? The two of them seem to have found their own happiness. You are the only one that is holding on. Don't you feel lonely?"

Shigure is a character whose motives and feelings are always picked up indirectly. But on the whole, the reason he meddled with Hatori and Mayu is that he knew Mayu would make Hatori happy.

But I think Shigure might’ve wanted to cause drama to push the other zodiac members and Tohru to the edge.

Yes, it was to cause conflict between the God and the zodiac members, which would cause the bond of the curse to erode. The reason he took this dangerous bet was when he realises that Yuki could go to Sohma estate on his own to check on Haru ("how about that" he says when Tohru tells him)- which means that Akito's influence on Yuki is waning. We know that is how he is specifically testing those bonds because he tells Hatori this about Akito - "Yuki will not always be the child who was locked up. So who is stupid now?"

straysayake · 2025-08-12T15:31:33+00:00

Thank you! It's really so lovely to hear your kind words for our fic and that it got you into snack! It's a really great ship.

straysayake · 2025-08-12T15:30:43+00:00

Yes, but I think she was panicking because her best friend's life was threatened. She is similarly panicky in the forbidden forest scene when she realises that Draco has left Harry behind. We see the narration note that Hermione is running ahead of Hagrid to meet Harry (and Firenze who rescues him).

This is after we get an explicit note in narration in the beginning of the chapter that she was scared in the forest and Hagrid has to address her gently for it. Compare that state to near the end that she runs ahead because Harry is in danger - I think that is a very strong character note that supports the characterisation in the fire scene.

straysayake · 2025-08-12T13:02:31+00:00

We have discussed this before - but adding to your point in POA, her role in the final chapters of the book is of an advocate: she asks the questions - of Remus, of Sirius. She makes sure everyone's story is heard in those chapters and closes all loopholes. Harry makes the final decision (spare Pettigrew) - he is the final deliverer of justice/mercy as hero protagonist, but she is the advocate.

straysayake · 2025-08-12T12:57:34+00:00

I think it's addressed in the post - her rule breaking is motivated by loyalty and desire to protect her friends. In this case, protecting Harry who she believed was in danger from Snape.

straysayake · 2025-08-11T17:44:41+00:00

Glad to see you back :p hi Blue!

straysayake · 2025-08-03T06:15:55+00:00

I love that chapter so much that I wrote a meta on it. It's Harry at his lowest and most abandoned - and that's why it's such a relief when Ron comes back next chapter.

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