Today's Document
tannertan36
Sade Olutola
YOU ARE THE REASON
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Xuebing Du
pixel skylines
hello vonnie
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
we're not kids anymore.
Origami Around
Keni
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@thebluemoonlady
“It ends or it doesn’t. That’s what you say. That’s how you get through it. The tunnel, the night, the pain, the love. It ends or it doesn’t. If the sun never comes up, you find a way to live without it. If they don’t come back, you sleep in the middle of the bed, learn how to make enough coffee for yourself alone. Adapt. Adjust. It ends or it doesn’t. It ends or it doesn’t. We do not perish.”
— Caitlyn Siehl, It Ends or it Doesn’t
FOR TWENTY-YEAR-OLDS WHO HAVE NEVER BEEN LOVED
written by Meggie Royer from Writings for Winter.
Ego, Id, and Superego in NBC's Hannibal
Great analysis that I've found recently on youtube 👆🏼 on the as always, compellingly disturbing Dr Lecter.
By exploring the concepts of Freudian psychoanalysis, it provides greater understanding for characters like Alana Bloom (superego) or Dr Bedelia du Maurier (ego). It portrays The Stag Man (Wendigo), symbolic apparition seen by Will Graham as the Freudian id.
Through the analysis we can find out what these specific characters and symbols mean in different stages of the show for Hannibal and his psyche.
Extremely interesting and thought provoking. Definitely deserves more views and likes :)
There's no talent... only hard work, dedication, open mind and a good dosage of optimism :)
You can do it!! 😁
“In the middle of Shoma’s 4CC free skate, I forgot that it’s an actual competition skate. The performance felt like pure art. Scores, elements and components didn’t matter. That skate didn’t need to fulfill every ISU rulebooks bullet points to reach out and touch my soul. What an artist. What a fighter. Felt lucky to be following figure skating during his active years.“
Shoma Uno Sapporo 2022 Men Free Program
Part 2
Air on the G String; Mea tormenta, properate! sung by Jakub Józef Orliński
NHK Trophy 2022
Video from Skating ISU
Shoma Uno Sapporo 2022 Men Free Program
Part 1
Air on the G String; Mea tormenta, properate! sung by Jakub Józef Orliński
NHK Trophy 2022
Video from Skating ISU
Shoma Uno Sapporo 2022 Men Short Program
Gravity by John Mayer
NHK Trophy 2022
Video from Skating ISU
Diogenes of Synope also known as Diogenes the Cynic had a very interesting practice during his lifetime. He used to travel the streets of Athens holding a lit lantern, during broad daylight as he claimed to be looking for "an honest man" (most often it is stated 'looking for an honest man', but supposedly the correct translation should be 'looking for a human being'). Needless to say, he never found one.
I've been recently rereading the whole series about agent Pendergast written by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. I've only now noticed that Diogenes Pendergast at least two times made a reference to Diogenes of Synope. Probably meaningless observation but as I'm really into the Pendergast brothers, I've found it pretty interesting as I see similarities between the two Diogeneses.
Unfortunately, I'm not up to date with the newest novels as I'm still waiting for Polish translations, which are late by at least 4 years now. I wish some publishing companies would make an effort to translate the series more quickly (lol).
About the illustration: created by me aka justleart ;) If anyone would be interested to have a similair illustration created (in fact I can perform any other graphic design/photoshop work), do not hesitate to contact me at [email protected]. I'm open for commissions :)
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On Furuta
I thought I was out of the game, but they dragged me back in.
Let’s address some common complaints I see within the fandom (talking extremely generally here), and try to correct the misreading of Furuta with the text itself.
There is nothing plot breaking, or even shallow about Furuta’s character. He’s a character in the narrative the same as everybody else, however the narrative tries to trick you into believing that he is a shallow meme in order to hide his vulnerability. It’s like a narrative thing, alright the rest is under the cut.
Keep reading
In furuta poem its something line at his say that i couldnt understand " if you were planning or giving me something,in this year i want four time more of that love or hate.I dont need anything else." can u analysis what does he mean?
Thanks for asking, anon.
Sure, I can certainly try.
“So if you were planning on giving me something.In this year, I want four times more of that love or hate.I don’t need anything else.”
Well, what I want to point out is that Furuta is probably a lonely person. A very lonely person, that is. You see, just for you anon, I went to some chapters again and noticed that Furuta has next to no considerable interactions with anybody outside he isn’t obliged to interact with.
One could say he is dedicated to his role as a V member and can’t afford to talk as much as he wants to, but I tend to think differently. Even Arima has small talk with people as well as in the first part, so does Kijima, even Hairu does it.
I had this discussion with someone before, but what we agreed on was that he was very likely a student at Kamii. The reason I tell you this is because we can see here a striking parallel with Furuta and Kaneki. Both are withdrawn, only dedicating their attention to their respective book. I don’t think that is a coincidence at all but could tell us what I suspect (note: it’s not a confirmation). Furuta possibly didn’t have any friends at that university either, just like with Kaneki’s case. Without Hide, Kaneki would have been very much alone there.
So for whatever reason given, if Furuta doesn’t see any reason to befriend others, or if he is quickly bored by people, he is a rather seclusive person, if he hasn’t any sudden outbursts that is.
A lack of considerable interaction with people who give you warmth through it, or with people that matter to you, makes you isolated on the long run.
A stronger point would be Furuta’s complicated relationship with his father as shown in chapter 66. We can only make speculation what his true feelings towards his father are, but either way Furuta probably didn’t receive much love from his father, willingly or not.
And let’s not forget one of the most important point that leads me to your question, anon. Furuta grew up in the most loveless environment a child can grew up in; Sunlit Garden. Whatever SG is up to, discipline, order and daily trainings are the orders of the day. That would explain Arima’s, Hairu’s, Furuta’s and even Shao’s rather… peculiar attitudes towards issues to minimal stuff like small talk.
And how about the very essence of this message? Birthdays are usually celebrated, but birthday celebrations are also often associated with childhood and familistic unity, and I can sure as hell guarantee you that no SG child had a childhood.
Let’s not forget his very birthday is on a leftover day and therefore assumes that his brithday happens only every four years. I wouldn’t be surprised that he kind of feels like a “leftover” for his father as well.
And about the “four times more of that love or hate” part… Well, to me it sounds like he feels he isn’t a child born out of love, if that is true or not we will see. But he didn’t experience any love and care since birth, which is why he wants to be crushed by love, experience it at its fullest. And I didn’t oversaw the hate part, I might add. I almost feel like he either expects, or sees the possibility of receiving hate, but more than anything, he wants to be overwhelmed by intense feelings from others, because it could validate his existence (I do think he feels somehow invisible at times).
So all in all, I must say that he not only desires love and attention, but also a normal, familistic life. And while I assume that it is highly likely the love and care from his father he craves, I also think that deep down he has a somewhat strong wish to experience the life of an ordinary person, including having friends, returning home but all in all having a place he can return to at the end of the day.
I think Yoshimura can describe best how it feels to be a V member, because I often dance around the bush as you have already witnessed. My apologies, anon.
And what I forgot to mention is that right now Cochlea arc is happening at the end of November or at the beginning of Decemeber 2015. His 6th brithday is coming up soon, so I am curious to see in the next chapters if Furuta expects a change in… certain matters for whatever reason because it is rather unusual that he expects something big to happen on his 24th birthday (I mean 6th birthday).
It could be that the estimated revolution is at its peek at the end of February and that the Washuus are starting to fall, just as much as V. Having reached its low point with possibly no assets to rely on and probably free from the clutches of V by then, Furuta’s father would have no reason not to interact with Furuta anymore, or that is at least what Furuta thinks although I don’t think that Furuta works towards V’s downfall just because of the Washuu family, but as he sees how destructive it has become and that it serves little to no purpose.
Oh, and the last sentence of the poem “I don’t need anything else” probably tells us that he is already fed up with all the mess that is going on and just wishes to have an emotional fullfillment or a nadir at its most extreme and quite frankly, love would certainly do him good, considering that he is on the verge of breaking down completely.
Nonetheless, I think Furuta has a personal vendetta against the Washuus. If it is rightfully so or if its “just” defiance to due being rejected… let’s just wait and see.
Thanks for the question anon, it was really enjoyable to write that. :> If you have further questions about any topic for that matter, ask away!
yeah, yeah.
I think there’s something to be said for Furuta being a creature of extremes.
Four times the love or four times the hate.
Where as Arima is described as “nihil itself” - nothingness and lack, Furuta is extremes and an overabundance. They fill the same sort of ache and emptiness differently.
I think Furuta might also seek out extremes because little else reaches him. He’s sort of dead inside, or at least buried under so many lies and personas, that it takes something extraordinary to even reach him.
Like the child he is, Furuta acts out to get attention, but does so in the extreme because surface level adult interactions don’t even reach him. They only graze his personas. That’s why he makes such a scene in front of Eto - because otherwise Furuta, the one buried under all the masks doing all their jobs, would hardly get anything out of this. It wasn’t Nimura, agent of V or even Kanou’s clown that needed to spin around on that stool like a grade schooler and generally act out, but I think Furuta spends so much time behind masks that when he has a chance to act out - to get the kind of attention that’s directed solely at him and not his job - he almost can’t help it.
Poor baby just wants to feel something.
He’s literally just a 5 year old throwing a constant temper tantrum.
Someone really needed to have hugged him as a child.
But in all seriousness, switch Furuta’s comedy to tragedy and you have a model of Kaneki’s worst case scenario. Kaneki has always had the same parts to him. The over the top violence, the instinct to put up personas. And we’ve seen him growing more and more emotionally distant. Putting up more and more emotional walls. That same sort of loneliness and defensiveness is inside Kaneki, but Kaneki had people who loved him, even if the most important people in his life failed to love him the way he deserved to be loved. Kaneki had Hide, and that probably did wonders to keep him as open and vulnerable as he was when we first met him. Without Hide protecting him and standing up for him all through school, would he have been as cold and hidden as some of his foils?
Hide and the folks at Anteiku, Hinami and Banjou - there’s this string of people who care about Kaneki and who Kaneki truly cares for that kind of tether him to his emotions and his vulnerability.
It’s a string he’s trying desperately to break now because it’s the one thing holding back that death drive of his.
Furuta doesn’t have that string at all. Furuta’s birthday poem came along with a picture of him smiling with a noose around his neck. Furuta’s death drive is probably as stifled by all those layers of false selves and personas as everything else. Even his hatred of the world, of the organization that took his chance at a normal life away, at his father, is normally contained to a faint dislike and apathy.
Bringing it back to his conversation with Eto - one of the things that makes that conversation so fascinating is that in acting out and trying to illicit the kind of attention he so craves from Eto (all attention is good attention for him, after all), Furuta probably left himself more vulnerable - left his defensive walls more permeable - for Eto’s attack to actually cut through to his hatred and anger.
And what Furuta is reacting to, after the initial outburst - the reason he wants revenge on Eto, is as much about her ability to make him feel something like that against his will as it is about her insulting him, if not more. What upsets him is that Eto cuts right to this core anger that is usually locked away. She makes him feel something. And strongly. And he hates that.
Because he’s usually so in control, but also usually so empty. How dare she both break his control, but also be able to fill him with emotion like that when it’s something he so often craves but cannot obtain.
This got pretty far into headcanon / armchair psychologist land, but oh well.
Such an interesting an complicated character and, what I think, is very fascinating and on point analysis.
"...if I were not there to make them acquainted, my morning's self would not recognize my evening's."
How many of us thought like this about ourselves before? How interesting is the thought that we actually are a set of different selves!
I came across these quotes by watching one of Colonel Kurtz's videos on youtube. I love listening to her talking about those deep psychological problems and complexities of human nature.
These quotes very much relate to the manga that I'm currently reading: Tokyo Ghoul, mainly to its main character Ken Kaneki.
How fascinating it all is!
Full video 👇🏼
Juuzou Suzuya and his SALVATION
My thoughts about how Yukinori Shinohara saved Juuzou Suzuya by teaching him how to care for another person.
Beautifully presented and visualized by Sui Ishida.
We've come to know what Juuzou went through as a child and how not-caring for others was so deeply rooted inside him. He was encouraged to take lives, "rewarded" when he was doing so. He heard laughter and loud cheers while he was murdering people serving as the Scrapper in the Ghoul Restaurant. It's only natural that he felt life has no meaning at all.
I remembered this 👆🏼 scene very well as it shows explicitly what life meant to Juuzou not so long after he was saved from Big Madam.
Life as Big Madam's pet taught him that killing is rewarded, killing can be fun, people are fragile, people die all the time... it's not really a big deal. It's normal.
Shinohara appeared to have a special kind of understanding for Juuzou and his scary, psychotic behavior, caused by years of torture and using him as a killing machine. This made Shinohara a perfect mentor/teacher/partner for the troubled youth.
He even made Suzuya promise, that the next time he wants to hurt someone he should hurt Shinohara instead. This shows just how much he cared for Juuzou and was immensely saddened by his total lack of empathy and disregard for other people's well being. He didn't know how to get to him. He was trying and trying and in the end his efforts payed off.
This scene during the fight with the Owl when Suzuya was processing his feelings towards Shinohara... we are able to see clearly the great change that's happened inside him. He's not the same person who was so visibly ignorant about his partner's life and safety during the raid of Kanou's lab 👇🏼
And here 👇🏼 the confusion we can see on his face while he's trying to understand these totally new feelings that were overwhelming him at that moment. The dread. Hopelessness.
It's really a masterpiece from Ishida.
To end this post, I wanted to squeeze in one more picture which was so endearing that I laughed with tears in my eyes while reading it. From my favourite Sasaki Haise ;)
This was so hilarious and touching.
Kaneki’s Checkerboard
The checkerboard pattern has appeared quite often throughout the series but seems to have been most prominent when Kaneki is on the cusp of or undergoing a transformation. It’s mostly occurs with a change in hair colour or in the lead up to one.
In Yamori’s torture chamber, when Kaneki’s hair turned from black → white
In V14, a part of the trigger of his transformation into Haise, white hair → black & white
Whenever Haise’s control over his past self slipped and Kaneki’s influence threatened to pull Haise back into that checkered box - the inevitable lead up to Kaneki waking up from his happy dream as Haise
During his fight with Eto in :re, when Haise joined Kaneki, from black & white hair → black
And finally after Kaneki and Arima’s fight, black hair → white
Checkerboards are a sign of duality; black and white, dark and light, positive and negative. For Kaneki, this pattern has always been treated as something sinister, being connected to Kaneki’s deepest fears, and the meaning of duality is tied to his indecisiveness and inner conflict; human or ghoul, mother or child, Haise or Kaneki. Choose.
(They’re also a symbol apparently used by the Illuminat- kenfirmed lmao)
But now we see the black tiles have fallen away to be replaced by pure white. White represents death:
sadness, mourning, funerals
The Checkered box in Kaneki’s mental space is now a White Box (the title of chapter 85) as Kaneki mourns Arima.
But I think it seems like more than that. Black and white are both required for balance (following the ideas of yin yang symbolism) but Kaneki has always struggled with this. The person he needs to be from here on out cannot carry that indecisiveness within him. Now it seems with the checkered pattern falling, his duality, or inner conflict, has been wiped away. As if the dark shadows in the recesses of his mind have disappeared. Kaneki and Haise have merged, Kaneki has decided to live and he now has a clear path, left behind by Arima, to follow. He has transformed once again into what seems like his most stable self. I really hope that an indecisive and conflicted Kaneki is no more as he moves forward!
It’s also interesting to note that the checkerboard pops up with the Washuus (CCG)- particularly Tsuneyoshi Wahsuu’s office- and with the Clowns. Both organisations have shaped Kaneki and his journey in some way or another.
On a possibly related, maybe nothing note, Kaneki’s hair changes seem to follow who the influence for his transformation is (more under the cut).
Keep reading
This World Loves but Humans
So here we have it finally stated in text. If the scenario is following Furuta’s plans, and the humans and ghouls have teamed up together in order to create a better future then why are the clowns still fighting on the side of V.
It’s important to remember that clowns are entirely nihilistic ghouls, so much so they were willing to watch their own extinction as a species as long as they got a front seat to it.
Nico’s words here, Itori’s words here.
Donato and Itori’s own implications in this chapter.
That they’ve seen this all play out before in some form or another, tragic comedy after tragic comedy. So when Renji is called warm warm, I can’t help but believe he’s being called naive.
That Renji’s worldview, his hopeful one comes not from having glanced at the madness of the world and overcome it by himself, but rather from not looking. That Renji himself is so straight forward and simple he doesn’t try to stray from his expectations. He hasn’t come to understand the wold and decided to trust it anyway, but rather his own reaction comes from a lack of understanding. A blind faith.
Renji basically says even agrees to as much with Take in “101″, ironically while the clowns are attacking in the background.
“Mutual understanding doesn’t require sharing everything with one another.” very convenient for Take who hates telling anybody anything, until everything’s already exploded in the background to say. It’s also the exact opposite of what Uta says in what the beginning and end title reference.
Mutual understand is difficult because everybody thinks differently vs Mutual understanding doesn’t require sharing everything. Both of those are opposite philosophies, but I think it’s no coincidence one comes from a human and the other comes from a ghoul.
Uta’s words sound entirely pessimistic, even perhaps foolish considering right now he’s claiming to fight because the world has no place for ghouls when he’s fighting for a human and ghoul alliance, but to some extent ‘This world loves but humans” is right.
The human ghoul alliance does not care about ghouls at all, we’re shown signs of this again and again.
The human ghoul alliance was not born out of mutual understanding, just like Take said they didn’t choose to share everything with one another, but rather to put their faith in different entities, the CCG and Kaneki Ken.
They all worked together to save Kaneki Ken, but even Kaneki himself doesn’t actually care that much at all about a world where humans and ghouls get along, just one where he’s personally accepted.
Hide himself doesn’t believe in a cooperation of humans and ghouls beyond it’s use to help save Kaneki. Do you know why I know this? Because Hide knew where Goat’s headquarters were all along, and he could have avoided this entire dragon mess if he just went to see Kaneki when Kaneki was leading a rebellion for ghouls, who needed a rebellion since they were at their highest time of persecution but he didn’t. The fact that he didn’t is telling. He’s a so called terrorist, but he didn’t even join in the rebellion that was challenging the established order.
Amon and Akira had their change to join Goat too when it was challenging the CCG and they were both rejected by it, as both of their arcs had them realize that the CCG was holding them back from personal growth but neither of them did anything at all until a scenario presented itself where they could conveniently walk back into the doors of the CCG.
The thing is also, Kaneki in no way has moved past only fighting because everybody around him needs him to, for various vague definitions of “everybody”. He even said “Everybody…” repeatedly the last time he used his kagune.
Nobody in Goat cares for the peaceful coexistence for humans and ghouls not really, they’re either fighting to survive or because Kaneki. Nobody in the CCG cares that much about what will happen with ghouls after this conflict is resolved. They’ve made absolutely no plans about it, they haven’t even tried to discuss it.
Even if they somehow magically all defeat the clowns and purge the remnants of V, there’s absolutely no guarantee that the world won’t simply return to the status queue, because nothing has been done on either side to actually understand each other. They’re only working together out of pure necessity and eventually if the entire world doesn’t end, that need will crumble, and nobody’s actually done anything to anticipate when it does crumble.
And that’s why Uta laughs at Yomo’s pure and simple faith.
Because as he admitted a chapter ago, Yomo doesn’t even understand Uta. So why does he so badly want to end this conflict without death, with a person he does not even understand. What’s the reasoning for that? How is he going to trump Uta’s reasoning? Why does he want to be friends so badly with somebody he doesn’t know or understand?
He hasn’t thought of it at all though. There’s a curious parallel in the fight as well, Uta says this.
Yomo says it’s stupid to only try to reach him through violence.
But this move by Uta parallels the beginning of the fight.
Amon stabs Donato straight through his heart, but it’s pointless because Donato just heals a moment later.
It’s an explicit set up parallel. Yomo says it’s pointless trying to reach him through violence especially when they’re mutually friends. Donato and Amon mutually love one another as well, no matter how twisted their relationship is. Yet Amon has only ever tried to comprehend Donato through violence.
Amon says while punching another ghoul who doesn’t even know who Donato is in the face.
So, Yomo’s own rejection of Uta’s want to fight is on a flimsy basis in the first place, because the other person in his alliance is completely gung ho about fighting. In fact, Amon himself probably thinks that piercing straight through Donato with his spear, and then heroically triumphing over evil and returning home without even having to bother to think about him anymore is in fact the best ending possible for him.
The two fights contradict one another. Donato actually does want to talk with Amon and understand him, but Amon only meets him with violence. Yomo doesn’t want to fight Uta, but Uta only meets him with violence and the ugly parts of ghouls.
Neither Yomo nor Amon though understand at all the people they’re fighting. Yet, they’re both people who claim to represent the hope that humanity and ghouls will someday get along.
Whereas the clowns who have looked at and understood the world with a critical eye, have decided there’s only despair in it for them. So, how exactly can they be overcome by people whose hope is only born out of blindness?
The only way to overcome them is to look honestly at the world and draw a different conclusion, but neither Amon nor Yomo have done that. In fact Amon’s explicitly been called to do that multiple times but he still doesn’t. He’s a ghoul who still fights mainly with a quinque, and who has yet to call himself a ghoul once.
Yomo puts all his faith in Kaneki, and truthfully he does understand Kaneki’s inner strength and struggle because he’s been watching all along, but he doesn’t understand Kaneki’s shadow.
Yomo lives to protect his niece and nephew but… Who the fuck is Ayato?
There is however one character who has seen the darkness of the world, but still decided to live on without feeling the need to blind himself.
The black and white pattern collar around his neck even resembles a classic clown collar. Google it yourself because if you try to google clowns you get about 100 creepy and not helpful results.
There is a character who had a strong prejudice against ghouls, and then battled with it, came to terms, and accepted himself as a ghoul and it’s not Amon, it’s not even Kaneki.
So either Amon will defeat Donato, with no build up or attempt to understand ghouls, his self as a ghoul, or Donato even for basically the entirety of Re: (boo) or Amon will lose due to his lack of understanding and his simple world view. However, the side of coexistence won’t lose because there is somebody out there who is similar to the clowns and has suffered similarly to them, but unlike them hasn’t gone mad. Seidou even ends up saying a clown phrase at the end of his fight.
However, even Seidou’s conclusion is a temporary measure. After all despite saving both of them and supposedly living for them, neither Amon and Akira have even mentioned Seidou once, even though a return to the CCG, and a human ghoul alliance would be a perfect time to go looking for Seidou and remind him that there’s still a place for him.
Both Amon and Yomo see the world in idealistic terms but it’s more out of a choice to take everything at face value, not out of genuinely seeing the darkness and choosing to see the light.
That’s why point of view is so important. If you look at Kuzen and Ukina’s romance from Kuzen’s point of view for example, it’s a love story. If you look at Kuzen like Yomo or Kaneki does, he’s an extremely kind old man that saved them, but a lonely one because the big mean world got in the way of his miracle romance with Ukina.
From Eto’s point of view she was an accidental product of an investigative report and a sad emotionally desperate man who didn’t care about his kind, or even his daughter over his own comfort.
And she’s not wrong.
She’s not entirely right either, and there’s definitely an element of Eto’s complete inability to comprehend healthy love because of the entire lack of it she’s received her whole life, but that doesn’t make her perspective wrong either.
Mutual understanding is difficult because everybody thinks differently, that’s the point. Amon and Yomo take way too many things at face value in order to overcome this at this point. Yomo still sees Yoshimura as somebody who took care of him and took him in out of the kindness of his heart, not because Yoshimura was using him as a substitute for the daughter he should have been taking care of.
I’m belaboring the point of course, but I want to make it clear there’s a difference between what blind idealistis like Yomo and Amon perceive which is mainly just people’s projected image of themselves, Kaneki is a kind and understanding person who has friends on both sides, Kaneki is somebody who fights for his friends, and the shadow that the clowns implicitly understand. That’s why Amon’s reaction when Kaneki claimed that he was fighting only for his friends, and he didn’t care about the vast majority of people was to smile and see the nobility in it.
And Seidou’s was to call him out right away… like maybe half assing this kind of thing was a bad thing…Seidou’s callout produced something closer to the truth for both of them as well in a much shorter conversation. Seidou did not really want to give up responsibility and the weight of that cross, Kaneki only wanted something to fight for because he was empty inside. However, Amon and Kaneki’s much longer conversation really only reaffirmed their equally delusional beliefs.
Anyway, that’s the conclusion to my essay on why I only stan Seidou. (This is a joke). (Ps. Laugh, it’s fun!)
Kaneki did not killed furuta , kaneki told furuta that despise all the shit that can happend to you ,It still can lead to a Positive outcome because guess what? Kaneki didn't choose to be abused by his mother and aunt, he did not choose to be a ghoul or be tortured by Jason. So I don't get why you say that what he said to furuta is not valid D:
It’s not that Ken is wrong to find his value in life through the people that love him. Of course he’s not responsible for the abuse that he endured!
But Ken comes from a place of “Live, even if it isn’t stylish.” That means live even if you fail, even if you are broken, even if no one loves you.
And he is facing Furuta, a man with the lifespan that barely scratches 1/3 of a normal life. A man that never knew love and committed atrocities for a woman that does not love him. A man that isn’t responsible for the abuse that he endured.
But Furuta killed countless people for Rize!
Ken ate 100 child orphans for Touka.
But Furuta kept Rize alive without her having any agency!
Ken is about to kill Rize without her having any agency.
But Furuta choose to not let people get close to him!
Ken deliberately abandoned the people that he cares about on multiple occasions.
The ONLY difference between Ken and Furuta, not taking his nihilistic worldview into consideration, is that Ken is loved while Furuta is not.
Ken tells Furuta that he is okay with the world just existing because he has people that love him.
Furuta seemingly dies alone after hearing the monologue of a person that has everything he has never had.
Ken is loved.
Furuta isn’t.
The narrative kills him for it.
Tell me why I feel so much for Furuta?
Funny thing, but ever since I was a kid, I always felt strong empathy towards various villains (fyi: not all of them) and stereotypical heroes used to piss me off lol.
In most of the stories out there, we usually have a villain and we have a hero. It doesn't necessarily mean (or rather it very rarely means) that one is awfully bad and the other one is crystal-clear kind of good.
NO.
It means that they are purposefully presented to us in that way.
It always made me feel immensely sad. It's not fair...
But as I got older I'd realised that the world is not fair...
It never was and it wasn't meant to be...
Mutsuki is irredeemable
…is a concept that would throw Kaneki under the bus.
Please let this sink in:
If
Mutsuki + Violent Behaviour = Irredeemable Sense of Self
then
Kaneki + Giant Centipede = Irrevocable Personal Destruction
It’s math! Not really, but it’s a stylistic way of presenting a story and Ishida’s Readers walk into the same worldview that most of our characters currently hold close to them. That’s deliberate.
The narrative paints Kaneki and the characters that are dear to him as the ones that we should feel sympathy for and we do. It comes with the package of being a main character.
Likewise it is entirely non-surprising that when we see Mutsuki lash out at Touka we feel an inherent need to protect Touka, not Mutsuki. This is a character that our protagonist loves and we have had an entire Manga more to develope a connection to her. It is no wonder that Readers pick Touka’s side because the story is set up in a way that stacks everything against Mutsuki. We are supposed to feel antipathy for them because if we don’t this entire confrontation crumbles. We aren’t supposed to fight over who’s side to take.
And the genius of that is that it puts us, the Readers, into the same place that our Save Kaneki Squad is in: It is a place that one should never pick, because it may be spoken from the heart but it hinders growth. Because neither Hide nor Tsukiyama nor Touka are trying to get Kaneki out of his terrible monstrous self to hold him accountable for his actions, they are doing so because they miss him.
Touka is a person who has the audacity to hold Mutsuki to a standard of responsibility that she doesn’t even hold herself to. She’s telling them to not get in the way, to not do anything, to stay out of it - while she, herself, is deliberately putting herself in danger even though she is pregnant. (Linkspooky has written a great post about this chapter, please check it out.)
Touka forgets that her dear husband is a giant Godzilla wannabe who ate child orphans and then wreaked havoc on Tokyo. All the innocent dead bystanders? Unimportant because she didn’t know them. Maybe one of them was a regular at the :re cafe! Perhaps some of those dead civilians used to watch high class entertainment like theatre with Tsukiyama. Maybe some of those trampled and ripped apart people were Hide’s classmates in university. Who knows? Our characters certainly don’t bother to check out the emotional damage that has been caused by Kaneki for themselves. They’d rather grab metal detectors and dig him out like some pirate treasure.
Touka is only in a position where she can look down on Mutsuki because she is the thing that Kaneki wanted to protect; she is the reason why he lashed out. And Mutsuki also lashes out because they want to protect and because they want to make their feelings not heard but felt in a “you made me suffer” way, but they have been abandoned by Ken in favour of other people and have no one to fall back to because the rest of the Quinx do fuck all to keep Mutsuki from going bonkers. Urie is great at not keeping promises whatsoever (just look at how Shirazu’s dead body is doing) and Saiko would prefer to sleep through the day than to actually do something about Mutsuki falling into a downward spiral.
What’s the difference between lashing out because you have been abused and abandoned and having suffered abandonment and abuse and lashing out due to it? That’s what both of them do, constantly.
The difference is that Kaneki has someone who he can call his and who he can protect (which is something Kaneki will always fall back to do and if he doesn’t have such a person he becomes suicidal, just ask him about Hide) while Mutsuki has been abandoned by the person who they put all of their faith in living in. Mutsuki doesn’t turn suicidal, they turn violent, but the inner resentment of them is so crystal clear that they confused Readers for ages about their gender. You have to hate yourself to a desperately high degree to resort to changing everything about you just so you aren’t reminded of the bad people in your life.
What Mutsuki lacks is what kept Kaneki stable for a while. Which is, for Tooru, a perfect father figure that they can rely on. Which is something that Haise did for a while, only to then abandon Tooru outright without looking back. Mutsuki isn’t wrong when they accuse him of not caring.
Kaneki and Mutsuki have so many similarities between them. You can’t condone one behaviour and accept the other, no matter the circumstances for lashing out.
And the moment that Touka was threatened to be taken from Ken? That’s when he threw all of his morals out the window and resorted to eating children. People with no agency. People like him. Not only that but he became what he hates and it’s so incredibly dumbfounding to see all of these characters treat his destruction like an illusion that you can ignore.
They handle Kaneki’s misdeeds as a Fata Morgana and that is incredibly selfish and shows just how little they actually care about the world around them. Getting Kaneki back isn’t a plan to bring peace to the world, it is a plan to get a friend back. A friend who just killed a major portion of Tokyo and destroyed important infrastructure.
From a narrative standpoint we still stand with them, not with Mutsuki. But these are people who cannot fathom to throw an ounce of sympathy towards Tooru, even though they have suffered terrible losses. They saw almost their entire family get slaughtered, they got their face ripped apart, they witnessed their husband kill children when they themselves were desperately trying to protect children. And. It’s. Kaneki’s. Fault. Still the Kaneki Rescue Squad ignores all of these terrible events in favour of Ken - and that isn’t healthy. Which leads us to a crossroad. These characters have suffered enough for it to last for a lifetime. These are the people that should care - the people who hold Kaneki up on a throne despite his misdeeds, and they show no concern for Mutsuki, a character who acts like Kaneki in more ways than one and acts as a foil to him.
If we assume that they are right in their way of viewing the world around them and Mutsuki especially, then we have to agree that yes, Mutsuki is irredeemable. And that means yes, Kaneki is also irredeemable. But we don’t want that, do we?
We can also look at it this way: These characters are wrong for turning a blind eye on Ken and extremely limited in their worldview which leads to carefully picked out morals that hold up to no standard. And the implications if this is true are terrible. If characters like Touka fail to see sympathy and feel empathy for Mutsuki, then how do they expect the entirety of Tokyo to throw even a shred of acceptance Kaneki’s way?
The people of Tokyo won’t care for Kaneki just like the Kaneki Rescue Squad doesn’t care for them. Murder is murder, as Mutsuki said ages ago. We should want to see an honest wish to do good from our characters, but we don’t get that because none of these people are trying to see past their own horizon.
If you want Ken to be given a second chance by Tokyo then you need to admit that Touka and Co. are deluding themselves. And if you want Kaneki to be redeemable by the story’s standard then you should wish for Mutsuki to get a redemption arc, not a death sentence.
