website update, and a bit more chapter reaction [Furuba 117]
Finished with the website update. *rubs eyes* The husband patiently sat with me and explained the changes he made to the code in March, so now I can stay on top of it myself. The main page is a bit nasty right now, because I wanted to list all the changes rather than expecting anyone to dig around for so many files in so many places (and at that, the Kisses are lumped together). But hopefully everything's working.
***
I think I feel a bit worse about how things might play out now--I still think Akito isn't going to die, but from the scans I'd been hoping she'd come to a realization of how much hurt she's caused. Mind you, realizing that what she's been doing has been driving the 12shi away is probably progress, and the look inside her head makes me ache for her . . . but no amount of relatively-newfound sympathy for her is going to stop me from wanting her to HURT FOR THEM, to have a real, bone-deep comprehension of what she's done while trying to prove things to her mother. And the litany in her head when she thinks of the wedges she's driven between herself and the 12shi is still one of *them* betraying *her*. [EDIT: It may be a fine line between hurting because of what she's done (and I can't decide if I feel better or worse about it, thinking that she may have had some idea all along), and hurting because she understands how much it hurt them, but I don't think she's crossed it.]
I guess there's still a ways to go on the downward spiral, and I pity her, but I hope she does go all the way down. Partly because I can't deny a bit of a vengeful streak (goes hand in hand with the disturbing level of protectiveness I feel for Rin), but mostly because I really want to see what happens on the way back up. I do want her to heal.
Someone (Flamika? Demeter?) was saying, quite a while ago now, that we've never actually seen anything from Akito's perspective. And now we have, and not surprisingly, it's a dark place. I agree with the school of thought that she doesn't seem to have had much choice over how she turned out, with everyone but Akira using her as a pawn or a figurehead. Young Akito really does break my heart. ;_; Her defiance of her (completely psychotic) mother shows a glimpse of what she could have been like if . . . if what? If the adults around her had been sane? If Kureno hadn't been freed? Poor little kid.
What happened with Akito and Yuki when they were kids seems directly connected to the bond breaking, but did she hurt any of the others before Shigure and Yuki left and Ren challenged her? The incident with Hatori was probably before that, but I do lean toward thinking that was an accident . . . even though Akito seems to have latched onto blindness as an excellent threat. *shudders* Accident or not, it sends real chills through me that she blithely used Hatori's injury as an example when she was threatening Rin (explicitly the first time, and implicitly the second). Somehow that feels *worse* if hurting him was accidental.
(And what the hell is it with this family and idiotic bets that are only going to hurt everyone involved?)
***
I think I feel a bit worse about how things might play out now--I still think Akito isn't going to die, but from the scans I'd been hoping she'd come to a realization of how much hurt she's caused. Mind you, realizing that what she's been doing has been driving the 12shi away is probably progress, and the look inside her head makes me ache for her . . . but no amount of relatively-newfound sympathy for her is going to stop me from wanting her to HURT FOR THEM, to have a real, bone-deep comprehension of what she's done while trying to prove things to her mother. And the litany in her head when she thinks of the wedges she's driven between herself and the 12shi is still one of *them* betraying *her*. [EDIT: It may be a fine line between hurting because of what she's done (and I can't decide if I feel better or worse about it, thinking that she may have had some idea all along), and hurting because she understands how much it hurt them, but I don't think she's crossed it.]
I guess there's still a ways to go on the downward spiral, and I pity her, but I hope she does go all the way down. Partly because I can't deny a bit of a vengeful streak (goes hand in hand with the disturbing level of protectiveness I feel for Rin), but mostly because I really want to see what happens on the way back up. I do want her to heal.
Someone (Flamika? Demeter?) was saying, quite a while ago now, that we've never actually seen anything from Akito's perspective. And now we have, and not surprisingly, it's a dark place. I agree with the school of thought that she doesn't seem to have had much choice over how she turned out, with everyone but Akira using her as a pawn or a figurehead. Young Akito really does break my heart. ;_; Her defiance of her (completely psychotic) mother shows a glimpse of what she could have been like if . . . if what? If the adults around her had been sane? If Kureno hadn't been freed? Poor little kid.
What happened with Akito and Yuki when they were kids seems directly connected to the bond breaking, but did she hurt any of the others before Shigure and Yuki left and Ren challenged her? The incident with Hatori was probably before that, but I do lean toward thinking that was an accident . . . even though Akito seems to have latched onto blindness as an excellent threat. *shudders* Accident or not, it sends real chills through me that she blithely used Hatori's injury as an example when she was threatening Rin (explicitly the first time, and implicitly the second). Somehow that feels *worse* if hurting him was accidental.
(And what the hell is it with this family and idiotic bets that are only going to hurt everyone involved?)