Sofie > Recent Status Updates

“thank god i didn’t hurt anyone” as she’s sitting there with a burn on her arm from those horrible bullies??????? i’m so glad we’re getting saki backstory like we got arisa backstory but OUCH does it hurt. arisa and saki were really both so fucking lonely until tohru crashed into their lives

oh nevermind he’s 26 AND definitely a soma, arisa i’m so sorry girl get out of there

okay i’m very positive that akito is not one of the zodiac and the anime spoiled for me that rin is the horse SO i’m calling it right now: arisa’s mystery crush is the rooster

maybe i have trust issues or maybe natsuki takaya has done an incredible job of putting us in the headspaces of her characters cause i am very wary of manabe. part of me wants to believe he really is a brash drama queen with a good heart like ayame but another part of me thinks he and kuragi are both super suspicious

oh they knew exactly what they were doing putting ayame and hatsuharu on the cover of this volume
this one is for the gays

ayame has quickly shot to the top of the list of my favorite somas holy shit the detail of ayame dressmaking and yuki gardening bc they both want to be needed?????? yuki bc he’s been left alone for so long and ayame bc he willingly let that happen
the yuki backstory keeps getting drip-fed to us little by little and i’m wondering if/when we’ll get a more robust flashback explaining it all at some point

i learned today that the japanese va’s for ayame and shigure are also the va’s for suguru and satoru and i will be enjoying their weird horny banter 1000x more now

i love it when shigure gets serious and drops the craziest bars out of NOWHERE
what a beautiful chapter WOW they’re all so anxious about what their futures hold but right here in this moment the best thing they can do is share a meal together

arisa having a crush on a guy who reminds her of tohru??????? hmmmmm very interesting considering that kyo and arisa are very similar too…….i am clutching onto the kyo/tohru endgame with both hands and no one can stop me

okay i feel like i’m gonna have to rewatch this part in the anime cause i KNOW we hit these same beats but they’re hitting way harder now for some reason?? maybe it’s the placement but ouch i do really feel for ritsu believing that he’s so plain and unremarkable that he has no greater purpose for existing. it’s really reminding me of bsd and atsushi wanting someone to say it’s okay for him to be alive

i’m hoping that the manga gives us more ritsu insight cause so far i feel similarly to how i did watching his earlier introduction in the anime. we really don’t get any insight into WHY he feels like such a waste of space so his outbursts end up pretty hollow and almost laughable? all of the other somas have very complex issues so i’m confident we’ll peel back the curtain at some point but for now he’s eh

“who could imagine, a beautiful person like that being a man?” tohru my love have you been legally blind this entire time or what

RIN HES TALKING ABOUT RIN ISNT HE
i need to know more about her and how she got in the hospital in the first place but in terms of her dumping haru out of nowhere, i feel like akito got to her like he gets to all the zodiac to prevent them from being happily in love

natsuki takaya you goddamn genius
“my rivals are stupid, calculating, and arrogant…..but that’s also what i see when i look in the mirror” the hypocrisy is so clear to us as readers for the first half of this chapter so when motoko suddenly acknowledges it herself it really stops us in our tracks. girlie i swear you don’t have to try this hard when it’s the right person for you!!!!! just move on!!!!!!

motoko being so worried about an “arrogant, bird-brained, calculated woman” being in student council with yuki like PLS the call is coming from inside the house!!!!!
i do enjoy the yuki fan club (and makoto) as a cheeky satire of the insta-love trope but good lord i hope they get some kind of comeuppance or lesson sometime soon cause it is a Lot

motoko and makoto are you KIDDING me???? have mercy on my slightly dyslexic brain i am begging

kyoko being a mentor for arisa is so beautiful!!!! at first she was disappointed that she didn’t live up to her expectations of this cold no nonsense badass gang leader, but then she became a more genuine hero for arisa once she taught her about choosing peace and kindness over loneliness and harshness. she knows both sides and ultimately chose warmth, so arisa believes that she can, too

"i wanted people to notice me, but at the same time i wanted to be left alone" natsuki takaya casually summing up my entire existence as a teenager cool cool cool i feel fine
after getting this insight into arisa i'm even more fascinated by her and kyo's sibling-esque dynamic. they really are SO similar, it's probably why they butt heads so often. but i think they'd go to war for each other and i'd like to see it

"have i just been lonely all this time?" okay yeah and i'm fighting back tears again great cool sick

wow this is drawn SO beautifully i can practically feel the golden hour sun streaming through the curtains. such a stunning depiction of peace and hominess that so clearly juxtaposes how arisa feels at her own house

i already cried about arisa's backstory since it jumpscared me in the anime but fucking hell i just might cry again cause it's THAT good. her thinking "you can get used to anything that sucks" not yet realizing that the sucky thing she's really gotten used to is being lonely and surrounding herself with so much harshness she's numb to it all. having this right after hiro's section is really striking too

the fact that natsuki takaya was able to make me understand and empathize with hiro after wanting to knock his teeth out 30 pages ago is such a testament to her incredibly character writing. she just really fucking gets the human condition and how our insecurities and fears manifest in our actions

RIN??? WHO THE FUCK IS RIN??? and what did akito do to her???? shigure mentioned haa-kun which is hatsuharu right?? i can't remember if the anime kept that line in or not but even with the scrambled plotlines i'm pretty sure this is the first we're hearing of rin......hopefully (unless i'm being dumb about names) this means more hatsuharu backstory cause i am obsessed with him

no i'm sorry i'm still not over akito beating kisa and ONCE AGAIN, shigure saying that hiro can't blame akito as if it's just a known fact for all the somas. why is he above all consequence???? does he really have them all so brainwashed and psychologically beaten down that they can only blame the curse (and themselves) for all their pain?????? this buildup is so chilling and masterful oh my GOD

WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT TOOK 2 WEEKS FOR KISA TO HEAL FROM THE INJURIES AKITO DEALT HER?????? AFTER HIRO CONFESSED HIS LOVE FOR HER??????? AND AGAIN WHY IN THE FUCK CANT WE BLAME AKITO????? it's so fucked that hatori and shigure just discuss it like it's normal AND that akito punished KISA in the first place instead of hiro. he knew it would hurt hiro more and make him stay away from her. but WHY WHY is he so against it

i do not know how natsuki takaya managed to write THE most authentic precocious 6th grader dialogue i've ever read but wow is it effective, i want to punt hiro into a different fucking dimension

i know i'm supposed to ship tohru and yuki (and i do!!!) but tohru and kyo just have that extra oomph okay i love the angst and secret softness
also i hope they rework this scene to keep it in the anime somehow since they scrambled some of the plotting of this arc to have kyo's reveal at the end of the season

is this a good time to potentially fall head over heels for another ship? no! is it a good time to start another series? definitely not! so obviously i'm doing both

I LOVE AYAME WTF
ayame went about his teenage years as if he didn't have a little brother at all, which must've been easy since yuki was kept so isolated. but now that he's older and he understands how cruel that was, he'd rather have yuki be constantly yelling at him because at least that means he's not nothing to him like yuki was to ayame. i really hope they can find some understanding now