#btw I'm never referring to them by any of these names regardless if their good or not

[musical-attorney]

Okay okay! Stan whoever decided to put both the Investigations games on the switch and the people who did the new art👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾

They are the heroes of our generation fr fr😤 BUT YOU KNOW WHO IS THE VILLAIN OF OUR GENERATION????

THE FUCKERS WHO DID THIS. WHY??

[nyacchiiatos]

my issue with littlest pet shop: a world of our own

hi! as you can see i have a bone to pick with this show, but i'm going to be criticizing the overall premise rather than individual episodes (i can't bring myself to watch any). nothing exactly provoked me to post this, it's just something i felt like ranting about because i always found it pretty strange and sort of like a slap in the face towards those who liked the 2012 series. very long post incoming 😭

first of all, the entire concept of AWOOO (im going to refer to it as that because the title is way too annoying to type out each time) in context of lps' brand as a whole doesn't make sense. hasbro refers to it (in a backhanded way to jab at 2012) as "a pet-only world made by pets, for pets." this premise alone is contradictory to the entire lps brand. it's called littlest pet shop, not littlest animal universe. the 2012 show made this work by having an actual pet shop with a daycamp area like you would expect irl. yes, the show had humans which i agree sometimes took over a bit too much, but it's meant to be a city-based slice of life cartoon. the main cast are actual pets, they have owners, they have their own homes, like any pet irl would. that's... why they're called pets. whatever AWOOO was trying to achieve just completely defeats the purpose of a pet shop existing. i have no doubt in my mind that hasbro felt so inclined to sweep 2012 under the rug by rushing this half-assed reboot out as fast as they could to satiate all the "bring back the old lps" commenters. there was literally nowhere online you could view content of the 2012 series in ANY site, without the comments being FLOODED with "bring back the old lps." it got to a point where fans were borderline harassing the hasbro employees, recording themselves calling them on the phone for views and clout, and encouraging others to do the same. and guess what? it worked. instead of continuing working on the show while easily selling toys that fans were more in favor of, hasbro thought it would be a better idea to just completely abandon 2012 as a whole and then proceed to act like it never even existed. there was no good reason for them to not continue producing the show (iirc it had pretty good ratings and was one of the most popular hub shows next to mlp ofc) while also selling toys that would cater to both newer and older fans (granted they probably can't sell multiple generations at a time, but still). so ultimately, they hurried this little reboot to get it out there as fast as they could and passively shit on 2012 while talking about its premise. seriously? "no humans getting in the way anymore! we have a WHOLE NEW lps cast with no big headed humans named blythe or her ugly friends! no more communication barriers, because thats no fun! isnt this show just SO much better than 2012?" they were so ready to just throw the 2012 series and everything related to it in the trash. AWOOO was not made out of love and respect. it was made as a way for hasbro to try and get their fans back by proving just how much better this reboot was in such non-discrete manners. they thought of the quickest and easiest way to regain their audience and ran with it, without ever thinking about how it completely diminishes what all the previous generations stood for.

i was one of the very few people who loved the 2012 lps series since it premiered. being a child on the internet in the early 2010s definitely brought down my happiness when watching the show because of the overwhelming negative feedback it was getting along with the rebrand in general (something im VERY nostalgic for). regardless, i continued to tune in whenever it was on tv and i saw myself growing up with the characters. to say that this show had potential is an understatement. the producers intended to make more seasons and you just knew they wanted to keep it going (this was confirmed btw). they weren't in a hurry to get something better out there, until the "bring back the old lps"ers finally got their way. but honestly? it's not completely unheard of for large companies to eventually cave in to the public opinion if it means they'll make more profit. they were desperate, and it was definitely showing.

one of the things i have the most issues with is how hasbro proceeds to COMPLETELY ignore everything regarding the show nowadays. as some of you know the show's 10th anniversary was last november, which i and many people had participated in a large art collab to celebrate and honor the show's legacy. want to know what hasbro did to celebrate? nothing. absolutely nothing. what's even worse is that michael kopsa, the voice of roger, had passed away very shortly before the shows 10th anniversary. and guess what? complete silence. that's just incredibly disrespectful to be completely honest. someone who brought his best work to your show and others on the same network (if im remembering correctly at least) and was such a joy to be around, and this is how you thank him? not a single piece of acknowledgement, all because you're too scared to ever talk about 2012 again because of the scary older fans that persuaded you to pull the plug on the whole thing? you weren't even willing to make one little post offering your condolences? oh because you just can't ever mention that show ever again, it'll spark those negative comments just like before. and you've made it abundantly clear that you care more about profiting off these people than having some kind of self awareness.

i apologize that this got so heavy, i've always wanted to properly write down my honest thoughts about this whole thing because ive been unhappy with it for years and years now. if you like AWOOO, i don't care. i wont give you a hard time for liking it, because the show itself isnt inherently bad. just what went on behind it is what bothers me so much. the fact that hasbro can completely ignore their own creation for what... 7 years now? is beyond my comprehension. they can keep pretending it never existed, but small groups of people online have been rediscovering this show and remembering how much they loved it when they were younger. you had a good thing going here hasbro, it sucks that you had to completely abandon it. but i think i can speak for a few people that this show has always and will always hold a special place in my heart and my childhood memories. even if we can't get more from it, we shouldn't forget to appreciate and cherish what we did get. and nobody can take that away.

[bemusedlybespectacled]

Additional updates! OH JOY, OH RAPTURE.

Update 1 (short but awful):

Kat, Hbomb's producer, got emails claiming to be from James, including one that explicitly threatened suicide. We don't know if they are from James or not – they could be sockpuppet accounts or just imposters sending harassment – but clearly it was on Kat's mind, at the very least, when James posted the suicide note on Twitter.

Update 2 (MORE fraud): In addition to his Twitter and Tiktok sockpuppets, he had a LinkedIn account under a fake name with fake credentials (since deleted, but screenshots are below).

I am specifically calling them "fake credentials" for two reasons: 1) it's James Somerton, no one should believe a word he says without independent, documented proof to back him up, and 2) in his second apology video, he discussed at length how he'd had trouble finding jobs, both in and out of his areas of expertise, because he had epilepsy and therefore was considered a safety hazard, and so couldn't be insured under his employer's insurance. Because of his inability to work a "normal" job, he turned to Youtube for money.

Now, this is bullshit for different reasons: employment insurance is based on the kind of business and whether it's high or low risk (ex: the insurance premiums for a library are going to be much lower than those for a coal mine), not the safety profile of any individual employee, and anyone straight telling him "we don't think you can do this job because you have epilepsy" is looking at a very easy employment discrimination lawsuit. But regardless, that was his claim: "I can't work because I have a head injury."

So, there are three possible scenarios:

James is lying about his credentials on his LinkedIn, and does not have the experience he claims to have had. I'm particularly dubious of his claims to have attended Carleton University for his MBA the entire time he was a "Marketing Specialist and Account Manager" in London, on site, particularly given his other claims that he grew up extremely poor and was still poor enough to need a roommate (Nick) for the first few years of the channel, and AFAIK has never discussed living or working anywhere other than Canada. In both apologies, he only ever mentions moving between different locations in Canada, without mentioning anything like living in the UK for multiple years.

James was lying about his inability to work in his second apology video, and was in fact able to balance multiple jobs while also producing content for Youtube, and hold down those jobs for significant periods of time. This is all despite allegedly being turned away or fired from jobs due to his epilepsy and having such bad memory issues that he could not tell when something was written about his own experience or was copy-pasted from someone else.

James was lying about both: he is capable of working a regular 9-5, but something else (lack of experience, lack of work ethic, lack of the kind of prestige and money he'd want) keeps him grifting on the internet instead.

Sources and screenshots under the cut:

Additional link sources:

Transcripts of his first and second apologies, with commentary, since I reference both. Check out that whole site, btw, they have good breakdowns of the misinformation and plagiarism in his videos.

what's happening with James Somerton right now: a probably-incomplete primer

TW: suicide, including suicide as a threat and a manipulation tactic.

The short version:

James Somerton is a former Youtube essayist who focused entirely on queer history, queer media criticism, and queer issues in general. He is also a flagrant grifter who has made tens of thousands of dollars via fraud, both directly (lying about his finances to beg for money and getting donations for films he never even started making) and indirectly (stealing whole essays and articles and books, reading them out loud verbatim for his videos without indicating they were anything other than his own work, and then using the prestige he gained from using their work to get Patrons and sponsorships).

The story as told James and James apologists was that James attempted to apologize twice, was hounded mercilessly on the internet for weeks, and then, driven to the end of his rope, he posted a suicide note on Twitter, was MIA for several days, and from then on has been avoiding the internet.

The actual story, as revealed yesterday, was that James used two sockpuppet accounts to defend himself and parrot his talking points (again, while publicly claiming to be trying to take responsibility for his actions), using one to try to rebrand the con under a different name and another to deliberately stoke the panic caused by his suicide note. He was not only aware of the pain and anxiety he was causing people, but he encouraged it on one alt while hornyposting about his favorite movies on the other.

He is an unrepentant con artist who successfully used a suicide threat to prevent further interference with future cons. The only reason he was caught is because he is apparently incapable of going more than a couple of weeks without trying to get back in the internet spotlight, allowing people to tie his alts back to him. He lies for fun and profit and he should not be taken seriously, ever.

The long version:

In December 2023, Youtube essayist Hbomberguy (Harry Brewis) put out a four-hour-long video about plagiarism on the internet, and devoted two hours to addressing as much of JS's plagiarism as he could. I strongly recommend watching the entire thing, as the first two hours build on the concepts that he uses later in the video.

He also blew the whistle on James' fraud surrounding Telos, a studio James founded using thousands of dollars of IndieGoGo money that never actually produced any films despite him definitely working on them! Any day now they'll be released! Don't you worry!

A day later, Todd in the Shadows, a guy whose entire thing is music reviews, posted his own video debunking multiple outright lies that James had told about history, especially queer history. A few more days later, The Ace Couple, who run a podcast about asexuality, released an episode detailing how they'd lost $1.5k donating to Telos.

I have put the videos, Twitter threads, Patreon posts, and Reddit posts by other people discussing different aspects of James' fraud under the cut.

Every other time James was caught plagiarizing, prior to Harry's video, he would lie about it. Either he'd have some excuse (easily proven to be a lie) or he'd retreat to his favorite deflection: "I'm just being harassed because I'm gay."

This last lie was one he'd use not only to deflect accusations of plagiarism, but all criticism in general, no matter how trivial. Every time, the critic or someone associated with them would somehow dox him, or harass him, or send him death threats, or threaten to falsely accuse him of sexual assault.

This happened to The Ace Couple (who'd tried to correct him on something extremely acephobic in one of his videos), Jessie Gender (who'd tried to correct him when he claimed that there were no queer content creators on Nebula, given that she and a bunch of other queer creators were definitely on that platform), and the person who first blew the whistle on him stealing from Tinker Belles and Evil Queens by Sean Griffin (who was accused of being behind death threats he'd received, and hounded so harshly they had to leave Twitter).

It is important to note that every time James faced potentially damaging criticism, or even just a threat to his ego, suddenly he would claim to be harassed by people connected to the critic, including threats to his life. There has never been any proof of any threats being directed at him, nor evidence that, if the threats were real, that they are actually from people connected to the critic.

In the original video by Hbomberguy, Harry makes a compelling argument that James brought on a friend of his, Nick, as a co-writer specifically as a shield against accusations of plagiarism. "How dare you accuse me of plagiarism! Nick would NEVER do that!" This is even more apparent given subsequent developments which I will get into.

When evidence started dropping about different aspects of his fraud (not only Harry's video, but Todd in the Shadows' video debunking his misinfo, The Ace Couple's podcast about their experience donating to his fraudulent film studio, and Dan Olson's tweet thread about James' obvious lies about his finances), he went into hiding for two weeks, and then put out the first of two apologies. He then deleted that one and put out another one a few weeks later. And then he immediately deleted that one.

While his first apology was rambling, vague, and dramatic (lots of sniffing/crying), and his second was more measured, thought-out, and totally batshit (lots of hilariously and bizarrely implausible excuses for why he'd done what he'd done), they had roughly the same points:

Not ALL of his stuff was plagiarized! Actually, a lot of it wasn't! No specifics as to what, though!

Most of the stuff that was plagiarized was just a failure to properly cite sources, as he had no idea that putting someone's name in your end credits or video description (without specifying what parts are attributable to that person or disclosing that you are using their words verbatim) is not sufficient credit,

Also, he totally had permission, in some cases, to use their work verbatim prior to publishing the video (this is not true, and is disproven both in Harry's video and his own screenshots);

He definitely didn't commit fraud with Telos and would soon have a good explanation for where the money went! (he did not)

He was going to keep the videos up so that he could either donate the funds from any monetization to the fund Harry had set up for his victims or to "help Nick's portfolio" by showcasing his work;

He lost his best friend (i.e. Nick) over these allegations, who absolutely definitely wasn't a scapegoat, except Nick was also responsible for a lot of the stuff James was being criticized for;

He was going to keep the videos up so he could either donate the advertising proceeds to Harry's fund for his victims (first apology) or to "help Nick's portfolio" by showcasing the work he'd done; and

As a result of this entire ordeal, he had attempted either self-harm or suicide (he merely alluded to "doing something stupid").

Again, his response was to 1) downplay the severity of his actions or flat out ignore allegations against him, 2) come up with ridiculous excuses for his behavior, 3) throw Nick under the bus, and 4) claim to be in mortal danger. As far as I am aware, he has never taken any concrete action to make amends to any person, not even donating money to charity.

This was coupled with some kind of attempt to profit: monetizing his apology videos, closing and then reopening his Patreon right before the monthly charge cycle happened (totally to let people unfollow him, not at all as a grab for that money), creating a new Patreon under a different name, and changing his Twitter and Youtube handles to distance himself from the controversy while gathering new followers.

At one point (I forget if this was on Twitter or Instagram), he also said that someone had broken into his apartment due to the notoriety he'd received from Harry's video. I believe that was after his first apology, when people started to point out that he'd just changed the name of his Twitter and Youtube channel and had restarted a new Patreon under a pseudonym. (BTW, the pseudonym he used for his new Patreon was "The Gay Raconteur"; this will be important later).

It had what I think was the desired effect: any attempt at pointing out that he was rebranding his grift now came across as weirdly fixated on minor things he was doing, which certainly wasn't worth putting him in physical danger. (Again, he has never provided any proof of this happening, nor provided any evidence that these people allegedly threatening him were, in fact, in some way inspired by Hbomb).

So along comes March 5, 2024, and James posts a suicide note on his Twitter, saying that he is going to set up his videos to automatically publish (for Nick's portfolio), provide in some way for the ad revenue to go to a suicide prevention nonprofit, and then kill himself.

The immediate response from the internet was compassion and totally chilling any further criticism, since you might be callously criticizing a dead person. Harry and Kat worked for a couple of days to get a wellness check for him while a substantial section of the internet called them murderers.

On March 6, a day after the note was published, Nick tweeted that that he had cause to believe James was fine. Kat confirmed that James was safe on March 11. Due to the drama of the "suicide attempt," however, the chill on criticizing James stayed in place for months.

And then yesterday Lady Emily, one of the cowriters for Sarah Z., drops two more bombs:

James has not one but two alt accounts that he was using to rebrand and start over.

The first one was created between his first and second apologies, and originally was for "The Gay Raconteur" until he changed it to "Will"/"thatgayyouknow" and, later, "The Achillean Boy."

The second one was much older, under the pseudonym "Mikey JB," and used stolen pictures from Grindr instead of his own face. However, it is pretty obvious that it is, in fact, a sockpuppet account and not just some other person who happens to like James, as detailed below.

Both accounts, both between apologies and after his "suicide," talked about how criticism of James was unfair because the plagiarized stuff was "like a decade old" and repeating the same excuses that James had also made.

The "Mikey JB" account not only supported James, but actively threw Nick under the bus, saying that a criticized part of a video "reeks of his co-writer."

On March 6, the day after James' main Twitter posted the suicide note, The Achillean Boy account was hornyposting about Ryan Phillipe. James didn't even take a day or two off of Twitter. If he had been completely off Twitter for a couple of days, that could have been an indication that he really had hurt himself and was unable to access his phone, or at the very least unaware of the panic. But he wasn't. He was aware of it and did nothing. Actually, no! Worse than nothing!

On the same day (March 6), the Mikey JB account was actively contradicting Nick saying he was okay (they "haven't spoken in months" so there's no way Nick could know if he was alive) and saying that "people like you" i.e. his critics, "drove him to it." Not only did he ignore the panic he'd intentionally created, he actively drove it.

He saw people going emotionally through the wringer over the idea that they might have somehow caused his death, and intentionally made them keep thinking it. He say people calling his critics "murderers" for "driving him to his death," and he joined in.

Why am I explaining all of this? I want to make a couple of things extremely clear, and the context is necessary to my ultimate points, namely:

James Somerton didn't merely "credit people improperly;" he conned his followers out of more money than some people make in a year with the Telos con, while raking in thousands more per month on Patreon and buying expensive equipment, while claiming to be near insolvency and in desperate need of money.

James Somerton has never taken full responsibility for his actions or attempted to make amends. He has only ever tried to dodge responsibility, particularly by throwing Nick under the bus.

Every time he has ever been criticized, for any reason, he has lied about threats to his life to gain sympathy and quell criticism. This is a standard part of his MO. He has done this over and over and over again. At this point, I think if he says the sky is blue, someone should go out and check first before doing anything.

"But BB, what if he really is getting harassed/threatened or really is suicidal?"

So, okay: people who are attempting to manipulate you may use legitimate problems as a tool. It doesn't need to be fake to be effective - in fact, it might be more effective if it it's true. An abusive ex who says "if you leave me, I'll kill myself" and genuinely means it and actually attempts it (and possibly even succeeds!) is a lot harder to leave than someone who says the same thing but is clearly just bluffing, because the threat is real.

My rule of thumb in these cases is to treat the threat like it's real, without caving to the intended manipulation. Whether your ex is lying or telling the truth when they say, "I'll kill myself if you leave me," the appropriate response in both cases is to immediately call a mental health service or supportive family member. If it's fake, it's inconvenient for them; if it's real, you reacted appropriately. Your response needs to be the same regardless.

You don't get back together with them because it's a real threat (presumably you wouldn't do that if you knew it was fake and they were never in any danger), and you don't tell them that they're a piece of shit who should be dead (HOPEFULLY you wouldn't do that if you knew for a fact that they were telling the truth).

In this case, I am extremely confident in saying that he was coldbloodedly lying the entire time and was never once threatened, and certainly not to the degree he claimed to be. But even if he wasn't, that does not and should not change anyone's behavior in terms of holding him accountable.

And I mean actually holding him accountable: making sure he doesn't try to start a new con on new people, continuing to point out that he hasn't paid anyone back for his previous con (so long as it's still true), that sort of thing. It doesn't mean people should tell him he should go die for real or, I don't know, try to get him fired if he gets a job at Tim Horton's or Target or something else that's not fraud. That would be wrong regardless of whether he's actually in danger or not. The point is to avoid being cruel without negotiating with terrorists.

Video sources and links under the cut:

Links:

It's like Breaking Bad, but backwards: a brief history of how Somerton successfully screwed himself Dan Olson's Twitter thread about the financial fraud My Year With James: Todd's post explaining the backstory of his video (Patreon-locked) DJSO#: Dan Olson's breakdown of James' second apology (Patreon-locked) Lady Emily's Twitter threads revealing James' alt accounts, part 1 and part 2

[af1899]

And I continue saving [Orbs] 🙂

(Quick, act surprised)

To no big surprise, Ótr is our next Mythic Hero in Fire Emblem Heroes, and this was the most likely winner for the spot as his role in [Book V] seems to have ended, I will not spoil any more details after saying that but if you need to know/remember what happened, refer to the script in this article (it takes around a minute to load so please be patient).

Banner stuff and a few thoughts below, btw!

His kit and stats

Do note that he has a +6 boost from [Atk/Def Menace] plus the +19 base attack boost from [Auto-Lofnheiðr] and the +5 HP then +2 to other stats from [G Duel Cavalry 4], this trims down his statline as shown below:

HP = 41

Att = 41

Spd = 17

Def = 40

Res = 35

BST = 174 (pushed to 175 if neutral IVs)

While this has been known for quite some time, he still boasts great offensive as well as durability, being able to easily take physical hits on both phases with the right set-up, he's quite fearsome in some cases, as he can even hit-and-runband soak damage, but ultimately, he doesn't pose much of a treat, units like Idoun can easily take care of him due to the visible penalty negation, naturally higher speed to double him without relying on guaranteed follow-up effects and advantage, but of course the number of counters wouldn't just stop there it's just my totally unbiased suggestion all right.

One thing is certain, his fodder is pretty crazy, but it's not gonna be so easy to get two skills in one go, [Flow Refresh 3] and [Atk/Def Menace] seems like the easiest route.

Also, he's an anima season [AR-D] cavalry Mythic Hero that boosts defence in that season for all units blessed with that element, as well as HP, by +5 to each's bases.

Banner data

Namely, the units available as focus and the duration timestamps:

Blue seems pretty nice to pull on with all the fodder gathering around in it but the other colors aren't too shabby either (all of them are about as benefitial to pull on in some form of another, with green usually boasting the better odds to get a focus unit at the expense of appearing less often), I'll pick red because I'd absolutely love a merge for Altina or get my first Valentian Palla, or some fodder from Legendary Eliwood, but I'm going as far as the free summon and continue saving, which is neat for me so that I can take a break from tempting banners... it helps I could never grow too interested in Ótr.

Anywho, good luck if you plan to pull and regardless of who it's you're aiming for! And I hope anything in this post has been useful.

[tardytothepardy]

Fruits Basket - Vol 17

I am,,, confused. Thoroughly. Did I read this too fast? Am I misunderstanding? This book felt like a series of "What? Huh? What? Huh? What? Whuhh?? Huhhhhh?????" and I am kinda bewildered.

So let's talk about it,,, somehow.

It starts with Shigure and Hatori talking about Akito's meltdown at New Year's, and how apparently Shigure tried to comfort Akito, but Akito was having none of it. The topic of Kureno came up, and how he just seems off, disconnected, in a sense, and also how Akito seems to have chosen Kureno above all the other Juunishi.

Panning over to Kureno, in the previous book Momiji gave him the CD of the play, "Sorta Cinderella". He seemed pretty affected by the things that Uotani said, but they also reminded him of moments with Akito, when he was younger. He calls Shigure later, asking for Tohru, which Shigure finds odd. What business would the two of them have? But it turns out that later, Tohru does run into Kureno, on her way to the store. She was squatting next to a bunch of birds, and when he showed up, they flew away. This is important at all, because that isn't what usually happens to the animals that the Juunishi share a spirit with (agh how to phrase things), in fact it's the opposite. Tohru asks Kureno about this, and then he solidifies any questions by hugging her and,,,, nothing happens. Somehow, he isn't affected by the curse. It has no hold on him, he won't turn into a bird (I suppose a rooster, specifically, which is kinda sad bc I was looking forward to that, in a little way. It'd be funny, if nothing else) if he gets really weak or sick, or if he hugs someone of the opposite sex.

Tohru asks him how this happened, and when, but Kureno doesn't really know. It happened randomly one day, a while back, but he has no idea was triggered it. It's just that, one day, he was vibin, doing his thing, and it just happened. No one else in the family knows, he's just been pretending that he's still a Juunishi. Kureno also said that he can't be with Uotani, that the CD was a wasted attempt, because he's promised to be with and take care of another person, that person being Akito. Kureno makes it clear, though, that he still does care for Uotani, but he just can't be with her. This whole time, it's been switching between the current interaction between Kureno and Tohru, and flashing back to when Kureno first realized that the curse broke for him, and Akito was just fucking losing his mind, screaming and shit. He begged for Kureno to stay, regardless of the curse (btw, at this point, Kureno's a teenager, and Akito's still a little kid, so it was a little while ago), and Kureno said that he would promise to stay with Akito, stay by his side, pretend that he's still a Juunishi, etc.

And then, at the end of the chapter, something is revealed: apparently Akito's a girl. To be honest, I'm not really sure what to do with this information. As far as I can remember, it doesn't really have much to do with anything. Why has he (she? fuck. I have no idea.) been presenting as a boy this whole time? Because his mom forced him, since he was born. Why did she do that? I don't know, it didn't say in this book. Hopefully it fucking clarifies later on, because I'm just getting vibes from that one Insidious movie, with that ghost/demon person. Wasn't that their deal? Something like that. Reversed, but something like that. Idk, I was too busy being scared shitless to think about the intricacies of the plot.

Anyway, so Akito's apparently a girl, but has been raised as a boy. Four of the Juunishi know this: Shigure, Hatori, Ayame, and Kureno, because they were all kids when Akito was born. Apparently, when Akito's mom (her name is Ren) was pregnant with Akito, they all came to her and were crying and shit, acting super weird. Like, they all just knew that Akito would be the God.

As a fun side note, Ren and Akito fucking hate each other. Just,, so much. Is there a person in the Sohma family that doesn't have familial issues, because it just seems like there are a lot of people who do. I think maybe Kagura doesn't? I haven't seen anything saying she has issues. Nothing much has been said about Shigure's, Hatori's, or Kureno's families, so maybe they're okay? I dunno, but one of the things that specifically shows up between Ren and Akito, is that Ren does not believe in the "bond" that Akito and the rest of the Juunishi have, saying that it's a fake love, that, if given the choice, the Juunishi would not behave or treat Akito the way they do, which is kinda true. From what I read about when Yuki first met Akito, there were a lot of conflicting feelings, ranging from "I hate you but also I never want to be away from you" to "This is hell on earth just being near this person but also to be away from this person is agony", and like, whoa. That's a lot. I doubt it's like that at all anymore, but there has been some mentions that Akito does have some higher hold on the Juunishi than other people do.

All this said and done, I still want to know more. I am heavily curious. I'd like to know more about Akito's whole situation. I'm glad he's not just a one-dimensional "bad guy", but dang, some of this stuff, it just feels like it's coming out of left field. (Is that a baseball thing? That sounds like a baseball thing. Idioms are weird.)

By the time that Kureno leaves, Tohru's a wreck. She's crying, and confused, and just,,, yikes. (I kinda was too, but just the confused part.) And so who comes to the rescue than Hanajima, and also Hanajima, but the small one. (I realized recently that most of these people are referred to by their first names, except for like, Uotani and Hanajima, which makes sense. A massive swath of these characters would all be "Sohma". It'd be confusing as fuck. But still. Idk) Hanajima felt Tohru's sheer confusion and despair, and Megumi tagged along because why not, y'know?

Hanajima decided that Tohru would stay with her for the night, so that she and Tohru and Uotani could all talk stuff out about what Tohru was upset about. Unfortunately for Shigure, Yuki and possibly Kyo? I don't think he was home at the time but maybe??, that meant that Tohru wasn't making dinner. So Yuki potentially gave Shigure and himself food poisoning, but hey, it's better than takeout, right? (Seriously, Tohru's back must be tired from cooking, cleaning, doing the laundry, and dealing with everyone's emotional baggage, she's doing so much. And she still has her own personal shit that she does, like,,, how hasn't she lost her shit yet??)

Tohru says that Kureno was kind, in that he was looking out for other people's feelings and wellfare before his own, and Hanajima says that she (Tohru) does the same thing (which is what Uotani first saw in Kureno, and why she thought that he was like Tohru), but Hanajima worries that the more that Tohru does that, the more that she carries the worries and troubles of other people, it could end up hurting her. (We love a caring friend that cares) In the end, Uotani tells Tohru that it's okay, that she cares more about the relationships she has now than whatever she might have had with Kureno, which was nice.

Moving onwards, the school is making preparations for graduation! I don't think Tohru and Co. are graduating quite yet (maybe they are idk), but there are these paper flowers that they're making, and for some reason, shenanigans ensue. Like, a group of girls just nabbing a bunch of flowers that Kyo made?? Why? That's really weird of you to do. Stop that. (They were tracked down and forced to make up for all the flowers they stole, because for some reason they wouldn't give back the flowers they stole.) It's kinda weird, I forgot that Kyo is also kinda popular with girls, because usually we only hear from the girls that fawn over Yuki. But yeah, that's a thing for Kyo, as well. Weird, either way.

Now we are at the last chunk of the book, hooray! This isn't as long as the previous one 😬. So, Shigure and Akito got something weird going on. I'm not really sure what to think of it, honestly. Apparently Shigure slept with Ren, and Akito kicked him out of the main house as a punishment, which Shigure did not fight back at all. (wow that was not a large section at all i totally didn't just lose steam and stop right there at all nope not me i don't do that not at all)

I'll admit that part of me is still kinda,, squeamish? I guess? about people in the Sohma household being in relationships, it's just that they all have "Sohma", that is probably messing me up. Idk. It's definitely not a healthy relationship. All kinds of weird tensions and miscommunication abound. It's not a good time.