Furuba 126 scans and partial translation reaction; accidental swag

[umadoshi]

This chapter's definitely more about peeling back layers and resolving things clearly than it is about subtlety. Lots of interesting stuff in here. ^^ This is all to do with the main events in the chapter--depending on what's said, may post a bit more when the Kisa and Hiro material is translated, but I may have already said everything I want to

Comments

[umadoshi]

I suspect that Kyo's dad isn't able to maintain any kind of pretense because on some level he must know that he's partially to blame for his wife's suicide, and keeping Kyo around in any capacity would probably interfere with his ability to blame him so completely (esp. since he always falls back on the "monster" thing). It definitely does look like he was hostile from the start, and what he says to Kyo backs it up--esp. if we assume from what he says that he wasn't quiet about telling his wife that her giving birth to Kyo was part of what had "ruined his life" or his reputation or what have you . . .

And yeah, most of the Sohmas don't even know about the curse itself, never mind who's afflicted with it. :/ Momiji said that the family members on the "outside" don't tend to know, IIRC.

[re: similarities]
It's interesting that part of Akito's loathing for Rin stems from what she perceives as behavior similar to Ren's (Rin sleeping with Haru being the same as Ren actively trying to interfere with the 12shi bond to Akito), when Rin *did* actually do something similar that Akito doesn't know about (at least, I assume Akito doesn't know about Rin's offer to Shigure--I don't even want to think about what the consequences would've been for *that*).

A lot of my assumptions of physical similarity are a bit tenuous, for sure (but good for ficcing ^^). The thought process for Rin and Ren is mainly based on the fact that people think Rin and Akito look so alike with their hair being similar, added to Shigure's perception of a resemblance between Akito and Ren (which might certainly be more emotionally-based). As well as the similar hair, there's also the fact that they have similar figures--none of the other women in the series are as curvaceous (or at least, no one else dresses to accent it in the same way). Their eyes are nothing alike, of course, but other than that there's no way to tell how much literal facial similarity there might be (esp. since they wear their hair very different around their faces).

With Yuki, I'm kind of skipping a step--it's not definite that he and Akito look alike 'within' the series. I'm extrapolating it a bit because I really like playing with the idea that he and Rin have a strong family resemblance (this is definitely not something I'd ever theorize about on my website, outside of actual fics, because I've had too many instances of people taking my theorizing as fact. But yay LiveJournal!). He and Akito certainly look alike in terms of the artwork, but I suspect that's mostly so Takaya could do some visual foreshadowing, with all the "Yuki looks like a girl" and then silently having him look so much like Akito . . .

Short version: the amount of evidence for various links in that chain of connections varies quite a lot. ^^

As far as Rin's hair goes, I suspect Akito cut it mainly to strip off that layer of obvious resemblance to Ren. There're probably two completely different aspects to it from Rin's POV, too--on the one hand (again, this comes out of my personal interpretation of the way she operates), she doesn't strike me as at all vain about her looks, despite the way she dresses, and I doubt it affected her much on that level. But on the other hand, the powerlessness and violation of it were probably incredibly hard for her--sort of a cumulative representation of how much has been *done to* her over the years. *shivers*

[/tangent] It's been a long day, so I hope that made sense. I don't disagree with what you said about Akito's POV on the whole thing--that's just where my brain went with it. ^_^