[000]
[series]: Fruits Basket
[character]: Akito Sohma
[character history / background]:
Akito Sohma is the young head of the Sohma family, and, quite literally, their God, having been born possessed by the god-spirit of the Zodiacs. As a direct result of this possession of the god-spirit, very few within the Sohma family, especially those inflicted with the curse of the zodiacs, dare defy Akito's often selfish whims.
By all appearances, Akito looks to be a young man in his early twenties; beautiful and delicate are among a few adjectives often used by outsiders when describing Akito. However, in truth, Akito Sohma is, in fact, a young woman.
The decision to raise Akito as a man was made by her own mother, Ren. Ren had justified this decision with the reasoning that the Sohma family needed a male head. However, in truth, this was a direct result of her jealousy towards Akito and her innate desire to remain the most important woman in Akira's - Akito's father and then Head - eyes.
[ Further background to be found here @ Wikipedia ]
[character personality]:
Describing Akito's character is like describing a melting pot in which any and all emotions were thrown into, and in which the resulting contents are highly explosive. She is moody; one moment she can be the picture of eerie calm, the next she could be reaching for the nearest vase with the honest desire to see it break against the nearest face. However, despite this volatility of character, and her tendency to explode into uncontrollable hysterics, Akito is actually a rather simple character to understand.
Most of her actions are driven by her feelings, in particular that of her self-doubt. When threatened with the possibility of being distanced from her family, for example, Akito naturally reacts with the honest intention of hindering this possibility. Throwing tantrums, ordering against wishes, meting out unjust punishments, judgments, and resorting to violence; in Akito's mind, these are natural tools of the trade in her task of keeping family together.
Though she may resort in draconian measures to keep her family within arm's reach, Akito does truly love her family and as much as she wants their worlds to revolve around her, her very being does revolve around them, or rather, the curse in particular. With much of what little self-worth she could have had systematically destroyed by her verbally, and physically, abusive mother, Akito - though she may say otherwise - honestly knows she is nothing beyond being the title of "God".
In addition to her feelings, it is this truth that influences a lot of her abusive actions.
On the outside, Akito sets herself up to truly be a force to be reckoned with. She likes to reek of confidence and uses her male upbringing as a way to cleanly continue to look down upon any and all other women. In her better moods, when all reason to doubt herself is far in the horizon, Akito enjoys being a man. She acknowledges the power, the mental stability, and the lack of disgusting seductive wiles to be found in a man. Naturally, as a result of having to deal with her mother's hatred for her, Akito has come to hate her mother as well and anything assosciated with her mom. ( Her dislike towards Rin is a result of Rin possessing the same long black hair as Ren does. )
Finally, though her family is important to her, several members hold a higher level of importance (and lower, of course, though this is because of her complex towards women ), namely, Kureno and Shigure. Kureno is important out of necessity, because the one whose curse was broken needs to be held as close as possible to her heart. Shigure, on the other hand, because he was, is, the closest thing to her father.
Being that I will be taking her from an important breaking point in volume 20 and forcing her to go for a length of time without the following events in the manga that later on help in forcing Akito down the path of good change, this Akito will be slightly different in that she will have gained a new perspective that she never did in the manga on her own. Slightly more emotionally unstable, Akito will try to force up a more balanced outward appearance and pretend to "have won" and chosen to "compromise" when nothing much has changed in reality. This is also to make it easier for her to fit within the City.
[point in timeline you're picking your character from]: volume 20; before she meets with Tohru after stabbing Kureno
[journal post]:
[ voice post ]
I know you're all here. Won't you come?
I promise to be kinder.
[third person / log sample]:
[ I ]
Clutching the knife closer to her chest, Akito dissolved into a fit of self-pitying laughter. So, her failure as a human being extended to this inability to navigate through the world physically as well? It was truly pitiful... so very pitiful it made the biting cold, the sharp pain in her legs, and the exhaustion from walking for so very long, all the more easier to ignore.
She laughed harder, throwing her head back. The sky was oddly blurry, but she honestly couldn't care. A failure! A failure! God was a failure! It was a laughable idea; something so impossible was made possible by her frail and very mortal body! But no- no-
It wasn't her fault. She--
She had told herself she wouldn't place the blame on anyone else anymore, didn't she? But--
No.
There was nothing else... nothing else to do. Why should she be the martyr and accept everything as her fault? Wasn't it their fault? Wasn't it her fault? That woman, that bitch Tohru. If-
She stopped herself and curled up all the more tightly, holding that knife - cold cold cold and not because of the metal but because of the freezing temperatures Kureno was made to endure... his blood! - all the more closer. To her heart. Because Kureno... she needed Kureno. Because he was the only one who would be kind to her and it was her fault. That had been her fault. She had killed his kindness. But-
No. She... hadn't she thought if she'd gotten rid of Tohru, forced that bitch to leave and go far and away from her beloved zodiacs, then they'd have no one else to run to but her, their God?
No matter how she failed, wasn't she their God, after all? It had been foolish of the zodiacs as well, to think, to choose Tohru above her. Tohru was inferior and dirty, and apart, and distant, and not even part of the family. She had no right!
When had the laughter dissolved into pathetic tears? Akito couldn't tell, but when she opened her eyes, they were streaming with the damnable salty liquid, and her yukata was dirty with mud and blood and whatever else Akito couldn't care to identify.
The tears had to be stopped; so Akito forced them in. A cold feeling crept up into her heart. It was an empty feeling... but peaceful.
"It's pathetic," she muttered dazedly and then brought her hands - the hands carrying Kureno - to her line of sight. Glinting in the light. Kureno.
"I forgive you. It's alright. It's fine. God forgives you," she said in quiet voice.
Even if she never found them or anyone, she had a feeling it would be fine. Distant - they felt distant - but it would be better... here.
Where no one could see.
[ II ]
[ * to show the change in confidence and all that, Akito when in this kind of mood will be written using male pronouns. ]
He could have stayed huddled underneath that tree, barefooted and clothed in nothing but a yukata, but in this, even Akito had to accept that change had to happen. Calmer, and of a clearer mind, Akito had finally gathered enough courage - and strength - to wander to wherever the quiet echoes of attachments would lead to. Because they were there. He felt them, his family, at the edge of his mind and his heart, being, existing for their God.
Kureno was still with him, a quiet and cold presence at the palm of his left hand. Oh, he knew what that knife had come to symbolize, and he knew too that it was silly - so very silly - of him to cling to that inanimate object and claim it to be an extention of Kureno but could he really be blamed for it? God needed companionship. God willed and his will became reality. This was... this needed to be truth. And, with a smug smile on his lips, if it was just himself then wasn't it truth?
What of Tohru?
If they were there, then it was likely the bitch was around them as well! She was like that... a disgusting beacon that foolishly drew them to her, towards sharp and jagged cliffs of falsehood, of false love and belonging. The only real love and belonging the Sohmas need have should come from their God; from Akito, for himself.
"But we'll triumph over that bitch," Akito mused to himself, confident again. "She can't win... I won't let her win."
It required some stooping - some stepping down from Godhood - but Akito decided it was a small price to pay against Tohru, against Ren. A very small price to pay.
Blinded by pleasantries?
God could be gracious as well.