#meanwhile shigure is experiencing the five stages of grief with every word out of shiki's mouth

[the-sage-libriomancer]

some facts:

The Sohma family (especially the zodiacs) had fucked up childhoods and family structures.

All of the zodiacs wanted to be opaque with their children about their fucked up childhoods and family structures, but didn't necessarily give them all the gory details.

Akito is biologically female but was raised as a male her entire life.

None of the Sohmas (barring a select few) knew that Akito was biologically female. They all used masculine terminology to refer to her basically their entire lives.

Japanese as a language is not quite as gendered as English (e.g. leaving out pronouns and having more gender neutral terms overall).

now a concept:

Mutsumi, Hajime, and Shiki get thrown into the past and meet their parents as teenagers.

While discussing the future and the story's present, Shiki routinely makes comments about his mother and how she's happy, healthy, and making amends for all the hurt she's caused the zodiacs and the Sohma family as a whole.

Mutsumi, Hajime, and Shiki think that Akito was raised as her biological gender, and that saying "Shiki's mother" will automatically be understood as meaning Akito.

Yuki, Tohru, and Kyo are convinced that Akito somehow found, married, and fathered a child with someone who was even worse than him.

Shigure is one "que sera sera" away from losing it.