#momimi

Momimi - ‘Clout Chasers’ by Aurora Lynne

Another one of my Furuba crackships <3 I started shipping them some time ago and then I found out I wasn’t the only one and I’m in heaven. So @thewinterose and @r3dmi1es, partners in crime, this one is for you! 

They got together for the instagram clout and ended up falling in love in the process <3 

-DO NOT REPOST-

Can't wait for the weather to get chilly.

- so those of you who have read my one furuba fic (hey read my furuba fic) know that i kinda have some hcs for kimi’s family life? summarized: bio mom left when she was a kid bc her dad was cheating; she has a step mom, dad still cheats and the step mom knows about it but is okay with it as long as the dad tells her she’s his favorite; step mom and kimi have this passive aggressive relationship where they’re both trying to prove they’re the dad’s favorite, meanwhile dad’s a gaslighting piece of crap. anyway in this au, step mom and kimi get into a fight and step mom tries to kick her out, which only works bc kimi got fed up and decided to leave anyway (dad wasn’t around at the time, or he would’ve tried to calm things down prolly). kimi stubbornly ends up living in a tent bc she’s way too proud to ask anyone for help (and she doesn’t have many friends), shigure and yuki find her, etc etc etc

- tohru DOES exist, but her grandfather’s health issues aren’t as severe, so she stays living with him in ignorance of the sohma family curse. the whole drama w kyo and kyoko and everything still happened with her, and the kyoru is like kind of a side story happening in the background (with some shenanigans about whether or not tohru found out about the curse somehow maybe) but it’s KIMI TIME in this au

- i feel like it’s really important to mention that kimi’s first instinct, when shigure yuki and kyo turned into animals in front of her for the first time, was to whip out her phone and vague tweet ‘sohma yuki is a RAT!!!!’ she gets sworn to secrecy by the sohmas right after, but the talk of the school the next day is ‘what the hell did the prince do to get called out by kimi???’ she gets ‘harassed’ by the prince yuki club about ‘besmirching the prince’s good name,’ which obviously turns into kimi harassing the prince yuki club right back (i imagine she plays the whole thing off as a ‘lovers’ momentary spat,’ from which they ‘worked out and made up very quickly and enthusiastically o3-’)

- kimi still isn’t in yuki and kyo’s class! she’s also much, MUCH more difficult for either of them to deal with, and weirdly, yuki and kyo sort of.... end up spending a lot more time together than they do in canon? they kind of come to a truce of ‘kimi and shigure are way too difficult to deal with,’ at least at home, and they don’t have a tohru buffer to lean on this time. kimi has like. next to no interest in yuki or kyo, so honestly their relationships dont develop that much. HOWEVER, when she meets kagura and the prince yuki club (and any time she interacts with them), she tends to hang ALL OVER kyo or yuki with the specific intent of pissing off the girls, because she really likes to start shit like that

- kimi’s a business oriented girl. she wants SHIGURE to be her SUGAR DADDY. shigure joked along with her flirting at first, but quickly realized that she might actually be serious, so now he’s kind of afraid of her??? in that, he avoids being caught alone in a room with her and will occasionally beg kyo or yuki to help him (they never do--shigure deserves the harassment).

- kyo and yuki don’t have a big three dynamic with kimi the way they do in canon with tohru. you know who are the other two to kimi’s big three??? MOMIJI AND HARU. momiji is DELIGHTED by kimi, and the two of them co-conspire often in all sorts of things. they plan family trips, prank other sohmas, and gossip like NOBODIES business. kimi and haru, on the other hand, both have a certain ‘unstoppable chaotic force’ energy, and they get along quite well too. the three of them being so close helps a lot with filling in the gaps where kimi doesn’t quite fit the shoes of being a kind, loving heroine like tohru; kimi has the force of personality to point out when the sohmas and their family situations are being ridiculous, and momiji and haru are kind and loving enough to provide comfort and support to a lot of the family.

- yuki at whatever point in the story: i think... i should accept the offer to be the student council president. it’d be good for my character development and self confidence and whatever. / kimi from the next room over: YUN! omg we can spend so much more time together now! takei asked me to join the student council as a secretary JUST this morning :))

- kimi and kakeru are friends at the beginning of the story! kimi has a crush on him and he’s a) oblivious and a dick about it and b) gay (my au my rules it’s fuckin endgame yukeru in this bitch. komaki is his beard and she’s fully aware of that lahfkdsjflkdshfksdjflkds). kimi HATES that she has a crush on this wimpy eboy and and it’s a point of tension between them :)) especially once yukeru endgame starts being more and more obvious

- at the beginning of the story, kimi...... doesnt take momiji seriously as a potential romantic partner. big big part of her arc is recognizing that the tall, traditionally attractive boys arent always the best romantic options, though, and she does eventually start to fall for him :)) and THEN he grows like eight inches in a month and she starts calling him an investment lahfkdsjfksdhjfdshfksjlkfsjl

- the beach akito/kimi/momiji confrontation is CHARGED because MOMIJI is there and he’s in DANGER and kimi gets fuckin PISSED because that’s HER friend, her boy, her ONE. akito talks shit and kimi talks fuckin shit back and they get in a full on catfight. they’re screaming at each other, clawing at each other. kureno has to physically pull akito away; kimi only doesnt chase after them because momiji is hurt. this is a major moment in kimi’s slow realization of her feelings for momiji :))

- kimi and rin, once rin makes up with haru and is able to relax a little, become a seething, curse fighting TEAM. on the other hand..... the argument of ‘the curse WILL break, eventually’ ends up working on kimi, even though she feels strange about it. she cares about kyo, to an extent, but it’s a lot easier for her to give up on him than it was for tohru in canon, for obvious reasons.

- when his curse breaks, momiji has someone to tell :,))

- tohru visits shigure’s house one morning to tell kyo about her feelings. akito stabs kureno, runs to shigure’s house, and has a conversation with tohru (who she has never met before lahfdlsfjdskfjdfksl) screaming about ‘oh are you some bitch here to confess to kyo?? guess fuckin WHAT he belongs to me, to us, he’s getting locked up in the spring, fuck you’ but uhh tohru has had a lot of offscreen development and whatnot and she ends up getting thru to akki. and then she falls off a fuckin cliff lhfkdsjfkdsjflksjfdlks you know how the story goes. anyway kimi had spent the night at momiji’s house and comes back to the WEIRDEST mood layfldskdsjfieuwfjkdskhggkdasjflkdsjlkjflkds

to clarify a bit what i mean by this, ill start with a personal example. ive always been pretty good at remembering people’s names, especially if i think theyre cool and want to become friends with them, but i noticed around middle school or high school that people subconsciously find it intimidating/stalkerish if you know their name and they cant remember yours, especially if youve only met once. on the other hand, if they *do* remember your name, and you admit to not remembering theirs, they feel empowered and sympathetic to your situation; and if neither of you remember the other’s name, you have a moment of solidarity that can lead to a more relaxed relationship. so, i started pretending to have a manageable amount of trouble remembering the names of people i wanted to be friends with. the first two or three times that i meet someone, at some point i will use “clarifying their name” as a conversation starter, ie: “you’re....[], right?” or “is it []?” this is a small effect of a pattern of behavior i tend to follow: feigning incompetence to gain trust and camaraderie. is it manipulative? absolutely, but harmlessly so. its directly derived from my own social anxieties, but its a relatively healthy way to feel more connected with my peers and to stop feeling ostracized by people who resent me for being “smarter” than them--something i struggled with a lot in my youth. momiji and kimi dont put up the *same* masks as myself, but they are both rather adept at maintaining their own masks, and are both incredibly socially perceptive in the same way that i am: they analyze people’s reactions to their behavior and sculpt themselves to get the reaction they want.

lets take a look at what this means for kimi. surface level, kimi seems pretty cookie cutter--sure, shes a little chaotic, but she fits quite nicely into the femme fatale/dumb blonde trope (even though shes not blonde). but did you know that shes actually at the top of her class? its subtle, but to me its always been obvious that shes actually incredibly intelligent and constantly manipulating people to suit her needs. there are easy examples of this, of course: flirting with a teacher to get a new whiteboard, anyone? but there’s one scene that’s always spoken volumes to me about her character, and that’s the one-off joke where kakeru starts to say some “secret” about her, clearly joking, and she immediately shuts him down by cutting him off with “don’t say unnecessary things!” and elbowing him in the side, all while still smiling cheerfully. the subtlety of this is that, with her reaction, she’s actually imitating their audience: yuki. it’s yuki she doesn’t want to know about whatever kakeru knows, so she shuts down kakeru in a way we’ve seen yuki yell at kakeru whenever kakeru makes idiotic jokes. the physical attack, the angry smile, accusing kakeru of saying something annoying, but that doesnt really matter; none of these are particularly characteristic to kimi, she causes as much chaos as kakeru on a good day, but they’re incredibly recognizable to yuki. her reaction is familiar to yuki, and it invokes an assumption that kakeru is making a lame joke, not trying to reveal one of her deepest, darkest secrets, and it works because yuki would react completely differently if kakeru tried to tell someone about *his* secrets. yuki doesnt pursue the subject further, kakeru bounces back easily and doesnt give it a second thought, and kimi is safe. so, we can tentatively say that kimi has a habit of reflecting other’s expectations to hide her true self.

now, is this one scene enough on its own to prove this idea? of course not. however, when we view her actions as a whole we start to see a pattern. we see several instances where kakeru will say something stupid and kimi will listen, encourage it, or say something just as stupid back; it’s only when he tries to reveal something about *her* that she shuts him down. we see subtle signs of genuine anger when he tries to reveal her secret: the overly violent jab, the tensed vein/angry eyebrows, etc--not very characteristic for happy-go-lucky, flirtatious kimi. and, of course, we have several examples of how she manipulates a) men into buying things for her, granting her favors, leaving their girlfriends for her, etc; and b) women into feeling inferior to her, feeling aggravated with her, and thinking she’s incredibly troublesome but knowing that they can’t argue with the men about it. overall, its not a far stretch at all to think she’s manipulating everyone around her to avoid revealing information about her true self: a proud, intelligent woman who enjoys causing chaos, but is also very manipulative and controlling to the people around her and hates being vulnerable.

momiji is in some ways similar, and in other ways very very different. most people--especially characters in the story with him--tend to put momiji in this “sweet, innocent child” box. it’s not just his height--his fashion, mannerisms, outlook on life, etc are all very reminiscent of someone much younger than he is, and people tend to *treat* him like he’s much younger than he is. even if they know intellectually that yes, momiji is significantly older than he appears, it’s very easy for the older sohmas to treat him as a troublesome but still loved younger sibling--someone to be taken care of, not taken too seriously, someone lovable. i’ve seen several people point out that part of *why* momiji does this is because he subconsciously feels that hes not allowed to act like an older sibling (to momo), so he acts as a younger sibling in an effort to get a similar sort of familial bond without overstepping the boundaries that his family instilled in his mind, and i agree. i believe momiji has a habit of feigning youth to more easily bond with the people he loves. his childish actions and behavior make him easier to deal with, and also give him a little more leeway to do things that would normally frowned upon if he appeared older, ex: sleeping in a bed with tohru, wearing a girl’s uniform top to school, taking any chance he can get to be physically affectionate with people, indulging in sweets and candy, etc.

two things draw momiji’s true personality out of its shell: his growth spurt, forcing people to acknowledge his actual age, and the breaking of his curse. late game momiji, to me, has always seemed bitter, tired, and sarcastic, as opposed to the sweet, energetic, and sincere front he’d put on for most of the series, which is very interesting to me. of course, you’d normally *expect* someone who’s gone through as much as momiji to *be* bitter, tired, sarcastic, etc; however, when he puts his child-like mask on, it’s easy to pretend that he’s this loving, saintly child who bears no ill will towards anyone, who can be knocked to hell and back and still stand back up to smile again. and i do think it’s true that momiji has an incredible capacity for forgiveness and love, but there’s also no denying that he has a limit, and we can see that during his first conversation with akito after his curse breaks. this, i think, is the most raw, true representation of momiji in the whole story; momiji has lost his link with the family he made for himself in the zodiac, he’s been physically forced to grow out of his persona, he’s finally seeing that his primary abuser is really not so powerful after all, and he’s forced to finally confront the fact that, while his curse, the thing that caused most of the troubles in his life, is broken, the impacts it already had on his life won’t magically go away. momiji in this scene seems completely disconnected from akito, who is still caught up in the curse, still desperately trying to hold everything together; in his lowest moment, we can finally see momiji, not as an all-forgiving saint, but as someone who just wants to start over. he’s not happy that his curse ended; id even go as far to say that momiji, out of every zodiac, is the one who most wishes it was still around, for the bond that it gave him with the other zodiacs and as something he could pin the blame on for his family struggles. which is why it is so sad to me that his was among the first to break.

now, yall probably know by now that i am a momimi bitch, so lets talk about them together. most of the people i see shipping them--and i fully admit, this is how i started shipping them--simply just say “same energy,” make a few cute headcanons about how they’d use each other for clout, and call it a day. this is perfectly fine. however, here at Overthinking It Inc., we take it a few steps deeper. personally, i have a hard time getting invested in a ship unless i can see how the characters compliment each other, how they help each other grow, and how they could genuinely enjoy each other’s company enough to pursue a romantic relationship. it took a little bit of obsessive extrapolating, but ive finally figured out just *how well* momiji and kimi compliment each other.

momiji, at the end of furuba, is going through a metamorphosis. he’s been forced out of his childish persona and into the life of an adult rather quickly, and he takes the opportunity to try to become more true to himself. we can see, in the last few chapters, the beginnings of bounds of growth; however, i imagine that there is a significant “awkward” period in his growth. judging from what i know about his character, i believe he would, in his effort to be more honest and confident, overcompensate a bit; he would become overbearing, intense, perhaps even oversharing. he might have a tendency to try to figure out what’s “wrong” with his friends and family, might always be trying to “fix” everything. i could easily see him, in fact, develop a bit of a selfish attitude (albeit rooted in kindness--it is, after all, still momiji); in his journey to stop letting people walk all over them, i believe he might become prone to walking over people himself. he’d have no idea where the lines are, where someone’s limits are, because he never had the chance to test them out in his youth, and because the people in power in his life (his parents and akito) never respected anyone else’s limits. enter kimi: tough, walled off, and incredibly secretive, though she tries to hide it. momiji, with his social perceptiveness, would notice at some point how difficult it is for her to form genuine, emotional connections with others, and would feel the urge to help her, to draw her out of her shell, not realizing that she doesnt necessarily want to be understood, nor that she’s (now entering headcanon territory, be warned) *scared* of those kinds of relationships. she’d take it, for a while, but there would come a time when she’d snap. this would do wonders for helping momiji figure out where the boundaries are, and how to be more aware of other people’s wants and needs (and it is something that tohru, reserved little wallflower that she is, would never be able to do for him).

kimi, on the other hand, has not quite started developing her character at the end of the manga. i like to apply all sorts of believable anxieties onto her: maybe she regrets not having an easy connection with other girls, like she does with boys. maybe she refuses to believe in the familial structure (that momiji idolizes). maybe she’s so used to playing the part of the homewrecker that, when she finally realizes that she’s found something or someone she truly loves, she doesn’t know how to handle it, and always worries that somebody’s going to take it away for her. maybe she views connections with others, or vulnerability, as a weakness, something that could be used against her, and tries to do everything she can to wall people off and hide her true feelings. well, good news for her, momiji is the resident king of loving family structures. family is something he truly loves and understands, from how much he’s admired it from afar, and been grateful for the family he’s made for himself in hatori, tohru, and the other zodiac. he’s well primed to help her understand what a true family is like, that real love is a good thing, not a scary thing, and that it’s okay to be vulnerable sometimes. this big, sweethearted doofus who somehow managed to see how much she was struggling under the many layers of masks that she hides beneath? there’s no way kimi wouldnt fall for him. and she, this girl who challenges everything he believes in, teaches him valuable lessons about how far is too far, and is basically the most fun person he’s ever met? there’s no way momiji wouldn’t fall for her.