#RC feels so much more alive than Choices does at the moment

[uselessgay10101]

They could see the gayness coming off them in waves man

[mallowstep]

Not so much a prompt as hc ask but whats your take on RC culture regarding relationships, platonic or otherwise? I always found it interesting how close Crookedstar was said to be with Silver and how Oakheart was implied to be very involved in his kits lives, but were they outliers due to the tragedy of their circumstances/experiences or nah?

Also love thinking about how Mistyfoot and Stonefur took on Silver’s kits as apprentices...Like in part it was probably bc of the half-clan revelation thing sure, but I love to imagine they were all a friendly cousins trio even if Misty and Silverstream closer.

Side note: loving a lot of aspects of the kinship system you use, but particularly the concept of “maara”!!! Very helpful for explaining relationships and wholesome to boot

...an excuse to talk about my culture hcs? heck yeah anon let's go!!

okay so in general, riverclan has the closest "nuclear family" units. in fact! riverclan is the only clan where the father is expected to help name the kits. in every other clan, it's the right of the queen. (altho in skyclan and thunderclan the father is often allowed to help.)

riverclan is also just generally touchy-feely and friendly, in part because in the forest, they had very little external pressure. they share a border with windclan, and windclan and riverclan have very incompatible hunting styles, and thunderclan, with whom they fought over a pile of rocks.

but they were always well-fed, since in most winters, it's not going to get cold enough to completely freeze over their water sources, and even then, they can hunt on land. i do not subscribe to mistystar's omen and the implication that riverclan can't hunt on land, because that...implies that there's a lot of fish in the river. like, a lot.

so while thunderclan is trying to seem Tough because of their border with the twoleg place, windclan had shadowclan to feud with, and shadowclan had prey-poor territory, riverclan was just chilling.

(imo, the thunder/shadow rivalry was a very new development in tpb. in basically all the prequels, thunderclan and riverclan fight far more than thunderclan and shadowclan. specifically, in bluestar's prophecy, we see a battle with riverclan and windclan (and they don't even share a border), but no momental battle with shadowclan unless my memory is really failing me.)

so anyway, riverclan's culture is that of abundance, and that means art and family.

specifically to crookedstar's family, his relationship with silverkit is pretty common, especially considering willowbreeze is dead. now, adoption by choice sacrifices the kit's previous bloodkin, but silverkit losing her mother is not that. sunfish is definitely silverkit's mother, but crookedstar is still her father.

if willowbreeze was alive, their dynamic would probably be less father/daughter bond and more family bond, but they'd still be close.

usually, when a kit loses one parent, it's their father. just, statistically, their father is more likely to be the one who goes to battle, and if the queen dies, the kits are very likely to die. so there's established "behavior" for that: (riverclan) queens will take their kits to the shrine of their father, tell them stories, etc.

but in this case, crookedstar isn't really welcome in the nursery, so even without his mapleshade problem, until silverkit is old enough to leave the nursery, he stuggles to bond with her. once she's about three moons old, and he's gotten over his mapleshade problem, though, he's very close with her.

so, uh, a little of both: he'd be close with her no matter what, but the father/daughter bond is definitely fostered by tragedy.

as for oakheart, it's a similar deal. when he gives the kits to greypool, they become her kits, but she's allowed to invite oakheart to be a father to them, which she does, and he takes his role very seriously.

if, say, bluefur had gone with oakheart to riverclan, that relationship would have been pretty much the same.

as a side note, oakheart and crookedstar are also definitely involved with all the kits. because they're brothers, they have the same relationship to each others kits (seya), and oakheart especially fills that role for silverkit while crookedstar is working on his mapleshade problem.

he backs off when crookedstar is repairing their relationship because he wants to give them space, but he's close with silverstream. i'd like to think that he has a good idea of what's going on with greystripe, considering he had a similar past.

and on that note! yes, so: to recap, by my kinship rules, mistyfoot and silverstream are sisters, so when silverstream dies, mistyfoot is definitely very involved in featherkit and stormkit's upbringing. doubly so considering their father can't provide a riverclan culture.

(stonefur is the brother of their mother, so he's uhre to them, which is a pretty minor relationship in the clan's eyes, but he's fond of the kits.)

but misty, stone, and silver are definitely close. silverstream is a fair amount younger than mistyfoot and stonefur, but willowbreeze and greypool are sisters and crookedstar and oakheart are brothers, so they're like, double siblings?

that's not how it works, my point is just they're close. silverstream is a generally popular cat, but she looks up to mistyfoot and stonefur. the fact that her kits get mentored by them means a lot to her, up in starclan.

and lastly! thank you! i designed it in part out of an enjoyment of worldbuilding, but also because, hyperspecifically, i was thinking about the po3 apprentices (berry, hazel, mouse, poppy, cinder, mole, honey, holly, jay, lion), and they all have a close bond. lionblaze and berrynose have a rivalry, they're all friends, and i haven't forgotten that in the sight, hazelpaw is the one to help jaypaw find a nest in the apprentice den.

(it's a really cute scene)

and i wanted a word to describe that! because cats are very clique-y and form very close relationships in a group that tend to stick for a lot of their lives, especially in cat colonies.

anyway thanks for this ask if you have any more questions! i love excuses to ramble at length about this. riverclan especially because i feel like i never talk about riverclan? but i have a lot of ideas about riverclan they're very well developed because i have the dovefeather au that's riverclan centric but also very long and i'm trying to finish it.

[linkspooky]

A Romance of Three Kings

Despite being rescued from certain death, Urie seems less than happy. Note the dialogue exchange between the two of them. 

“An explanation, to you? You think I can forgive you like this?”

(....)

(No, I can’t. No, I can’t!!)

Urie ehoes the same sentiment of being unable to forgive him, and the elipses show a clear hesitance. 

Why does he say those things though, and what are we meant to take from Urie’s apprehension. 

If it’s Urie speaking then it also makes much more sense what he can’t forgive, them not showing up in time to save Iwaccho. As with Urie, his number one priority is not actually the war of succession which Marude, Matsuri and Furuta are all engaged in at the moment but rather the people directly around him.

It’s likely the grudge Urie holds is Marude and Matsuri’s own failure to act sooner. That if they had interfered earlier, Iwao would be alive and not bleeding his last out on the floor only comforted with the fleeting image of his old friend before death.

Emotionally Urie is robbed of any victory he might have felt in this scene because of the loss of Iwao. His number one goal was not his own priority but protecting that one man and Urie failed in the end, and not only that but Iwao is not even a sacrifice in taking down Furuta as Furuta managed to escape. 

Why is Urie uneasy with his own rescuers, and why does the expulsion of Furuta which should be an unambiguously good thing feel so empty and ambiguous a victory at the moment?

The formation of this third faction has been set up for awhile in the background. Marude mentioned specifically that it was Hide who tipped him off.

Amon mentions he has comrades on the other side of the island for Takizawa to retreat to.

Scarecrow is seen leaving the island much earlier.

It’s possible Amon might have interfered in Marude’s fight to protect him from Yoshitoki, considering the Ukkaku shape shards driven into his chest and the fact that it was claimed a ghoul attack was what did him in.

As Washuu have been shown incapable of producing any kagune, and also Amon has a tendency to lose control of his and destroy everything that is in sight. 

Marude also watched the Matsuri fight and suggested it might have been better off to let Matsuri succeed than Furuta, which is most likely the grounds for their current alignment. Scarecrow when saving Amon relies entirely on CCG Rc suppressant gas to deal with the ghouls guarding him, and beyond that calls him by name.

Then later on, Amon seems like he is about to tell Kaneki that Hide is still alive but when Kaneki says the news would only worry him more Amon stops.

Finally all of these distant plot pieces have come together, yet in their moment of true victory they were unable to defeat Furuta in any significant way only forcing him to retreat. It echoes a bit of the fight with Eto, as Furuta was backed into a corner and lost all of his allies yet still managed to escape and get exactly what he wanted by reuniting with the clowns and leading a slaughter of the clowns.

Perhaps because the true cathartic victory over Furuta is one that’s set up to happen with a uniting between human and ghoul forces. A true victory then cannot be achieved with only human forces raising their hands up against Furuta. Yet, somehow paradoxically we see the opposite happening. Even though this new insurgent group is headed by Hide, Kaneki’s own best friend, they seem to be operating in the shadow of Goat with no contact with them whatsoever.

The story has eluded to such a thing for a long time though. As Roma’s own simplistic view of the world as a stage show was disproven, then so too was her understanding of the conflict. This is no longer a fight merely between two kings on the opposite end of a chess board. 

The meta narrative of Tokyo Ghoul has always been about conflicting viewpoints, a tendency of people to simplify conflicts down to black and white. The CCG and Kaneki, both which carry such black and white views of the world have a floor colored in the same black and white, Kaneki in his mindscape, and the floor of the main office itself. 

When Kaneki tries only to think of ghouls and is told by Arima to fight for the side of ghouls, the black tiles fall off of his mindscape and a white sky is revealed. However, the blue sky he attempts to see is still not there. As Kaneki tries to force himself into the role of fighting only for ghouls, despite temptations and people left behind on the other side. 

It was always possible that this stagnated conflict between two opposite sides, black and white, Furuta and Kaneki, the extermination of all ghouls and a world where ghouls belong, was going to be interrupted by a third party. 

There was the unwillingness of several key members of what should have been Goat to accept a world full of ghouls, or that their previous thinking about ghouls may have been wrong. Most notably, Amon who said so point blank, and Akira who while empty of hatred did not know what to do to step forward.

Akira and Amon, rather than their own personal wrongdoings in the past and what they have done to ghouls, instead act as if they are now liberated from this conflict. At the same time they are unwilling to let go of the emotions they had in the past, they want the same purpose they had when they were investigators. To believe more than anything that they were not wrong. 

It’s an emotion that Marude shares in his realization of the Washuu’s deception, that those who have died so far for the conflict died for a meaningless one. That, just like Amon and Akira everything he has done so far is empty, even of purpose as its’s foundation was built on a lie.

Their reaction to this however, has not been to turn around and sympathize with ghouls, who were all this time the greatest victims of the lie. Eto writes an epic about ghoul rights and a nameless half ghoul fighting to reform a world against them, one that was written in sympathy to the ghouls who were born into tragic existences and pulls out the only detail relevant to him. That the Washuu were his enemy and were ghouls themselves.

When Arima is asked to describe the motivation for his master’s horrible and crude breeding project, he gives one much more sympathetic than anybody would have thought. One that is overlayed directly over Marude’s decision to shoot Yoshitoki in the head. 

Marude quotes Mado too, one of the most unsympathetically anti-ghoul characters in the series. The one whose legacy is part of the reason Amon and Akira are unable to grow properly, just before making the decision to shoot Yoshitoki in the head. 

The ultimate irony of Tokyo Ghoul has spelled out clearly for a long time that Mado’s intuition was not all that it was cracked up to be because he let himself be blinded by hate. There was nothing actually that remarkable about his death, the world did not necessitate it, he instead chose tormenting and murdering a fourteen year old girl for his kagune and ignoring a seventeen year old girl who was just begging her to empathize with her and understand her as his hill to die on.

Touka even points this out, did you really respect your father so much as a ghoul investigator, or did you simply want him to come home?

Which obviously conflicts Amon’s statement, that the world  gave them no choice but to do what they did.

Akira and Amon seem to regard themselves at this moment, more as observers and contemplaters than actual active participants in the fight. Marude might even share that to a degree as 

Amon showed up at the beginning of Rueshima with much fanfare but made absolutely no difference until towards the end. He suggests to Akira that they need to contemplate their emptiness as their path forward, even though Goat saved both of them and their layer currently has a sign with blinking neon lights saying that their redemption for what they did in the past is now helping create a better future for ghoul kind. 

Marude is similarly shown doing almost nothing to interfere in the clown raids that secured Furuta’s position of power, but instead commenting on only as an onlooker.

It’s not their actual position though, as Amon, Akira, Marude are all important people in the bureau who could change a lot of minds simply by speaking up. However, all three of them similiarly have lost their place to belong in the world. Not only that, but all of the previous motivations they fought for, the foundations were always built upon lies. 

If you look upon Hide’s current gathered forces, assuming Akira and Amon are or were going to be among them this theme repeats itself. Even Matsuri has lost the rest of the Washuu family which he belonged to, the chairman position of the CCG which he worked towards his entire life, and even to himself the place of masculine and heterosexual dominance that seemed to be his birthright. As he realized through all of this that he naturally does not fit the mould of a Washuu heir simply because of his feelings for Urie.

They lost their place in the world, but also cannot find a place in the world of ghouls that Goat now inhabits, so they band together instead. Not only are his forces made up of people who have lost their place in the world, but also of members who have a blinding nostalgia for the old days of the CCG. It’s revealed so in Amon and Seidou’s fight.

Even with everything they have learned, there is an urge within them to go back to the way things were in seemingly simpler days. When their actions simply were to protect Tokyo and they believed that they were in the right. 

One more thing to point out about this budding alliance is that almost every member is extremely anti-ghoul, and their anti-ghoul believes go conspicuously unchecked or unexamined by the story.

Akira and Amon are saved and basically hand held by Goat, but in the end do not agree to fight for their purpose. Moreso than that though, if you look at the emotional release in this scene, the person who was comforted was not the ghoul Hinami who was the main victim of the situation but Akira herself. Hinami barely got a word in about what she opened up to Ayato about.

Akira and Hinami’s scene, while somewhat touching on Akira’s end mainly happened for Akira’s benefit, with no attempt at all for reparations towards Hinami. 

Amon already said his feelings have not changed, and moreso he does not even accept his body as a ghoul. Even in the omake, Amon cannot even answer a direct question about whether or not he’s a ghoul.

As for Marude, his motivation to act has always been human lives. With his regret for failing to stop the breach at the cochlea, and his own later hatred towards Matsuri for being so wasteful with human lives in his bloody strategies.

Furuta’s phrase “peace on death” even comes from Marude originally as a war cry to exterminate all of the ghouls on the opposite side of the conflict. 

While Marude has of course grown since then and become more self reflective about the conflict and the loss of lives it deals in, and dropped a lot of his own cocky attitude or at least shown the doubt hidden underneath, his concern has been raised all of 0 for the lives of ghouls, he’s only motivated about human lives. 

Urie has not changed his sympathy towards ghouls even the slightest, and the only thing that motivated him to act once more was human lives being put on the line rather than ghoul ones. He was fine backing up the Oggai when it meant the extermination of more than 90% of ghouls in a single ward, dragging them out into the streets and letting them die bloody deaths. 

His own reading of Takatsuki’s book, basically calls the fact that ghoul’s have rights and emotions nonsense. For all of Urie’s progress in regards to himself, he has yet to even change his stance on ghouls one inch, and he has not even acknowledged that essentially for all intents and purposes he basically is a ghoul by this point. 

So here we have our group of terrorists, not a single one of them motivated in any way to fight for the actual victims of the Washuu’s violence, ghouls themselves. 

One of their key members even is a Washuu, and a mostly unrepetant one as well for the legacy of what the Washuu inflicted upon ghoul kind. Then what exactly is their motivation to fight if not for ghoul kind?

Marude as said before, has always been motivated mainly by minimizing the deaths that come with this conflict. Matsuri even commented to such, that Marude has stayed single his whole life because of his devotion to the CCG. 

The conflict is something that has permeated through Tokyo Ghoul since the beginning, the supposed natural conflict between humans and ghouls. Marude’s approach seems to be to minimize the loss of humans to this conflict, and also to fight for the right reasons. Urie’s has been to grow stronger so he can dominate it, achieve rank and glory so he can get what he wants from the conflict. Meanwhile Matsuri is somebody who loses himself in it entirely.

He enjoys it like a game, and delights when both allies and enemies die as long as those deaths manage to align in his favor. While Matsuri definitely has a sympathetic element to him by being forced to fit the mold of the Washuu which is entirely restrictive and also makes him repress his identity as a gay man, it’s important not to forget that he has been set up as an antagonist to everyone, and especially Sasaki’s brand of empathy from day one.

He saw nothing to comfort Urie when Urie lost Shirazu, he enjoyed the deaths of his allies if it benefitted him, and most important Matsuri has always known that his life is highly restricted but considers the power and achievement he gains as a result completely worth it. He says so point blank, that the restraints on him are necessary for him to wield the power that he does. 

If there’s something serious to be gleaned from Matsuri’s semi-ridiculous faux death at the end of the clown arc, it’s that Matsuri loses himself entirely in the conflict. 

Yes, Matsuri cares about Urie but it’s been far established that the reasons Matsuri cares about Urie is because of Urie’s own attitude as an investigator who cares nothing more about throwing himself into the conflict for rank and achievement. Urie’s restrictive framework which he sees the world through is shockingly like Matsuri’s. Even to the point where Matsuri just assumed Urie would understand him, even when clinging to the recently dead body of his former friend. 

The king’s conflict has always been this way though, reliant on figureheads and empty believes rather than the discussions which characters who want to change the world crave. 

Hide, and by extension Marude’s forces might lead us to finally the crowning of a third king. Something that has been foreshadowed since Amon’s awakening.

There are three containers marked: Re, foreshadowing that there will be three kings crowned. Kings one and two include Furuta and Kaneki, we might soon be seeing the entry of a third king.

Takizawa even explicitly compares Amon to Kaneki, as both are people he wants to be, famous heroes held up as figureheads. As that black and white way of thinking is the way Seidou saw things in the beginning, holding up individual investigators within the CCG as heroes to strive like becoming, but something he’s since moved away from. At least in recognizing that he can no longer fit the black and white hero mould, especially after failing to do so with Aogiri. 

With that king would introduce a third faction that fights for a status quo among the two extremes presented by both Furuta’s CCG and then Goat. 

Which would make the current predicted factions: Goat: Kaneki Ken, Take Hirako and the Garden Children, The former Members of Aogiri, The Re: Cafe Ghouls Hide’s Group: Hide, Marude, Akira, Amon, Urie Furuta’s CCG: Furuta, The remaining clowns, Juuzou’s Squad, The remaining Q’s, Mutsuki + Aura and the Oggai

With Kaneki fighting for a future that is secure for ghouls, because he has to at this point if he wants to raise a half ghoul child that does not turn into Eto 2.0. Furuta fighting to bring an end to all conflicts via one grand final swing of the scythe with all the hyper accelerationism he has been burning up in the CCG as of late. (Super Peace perhaps meaning death for all of them, both the humans and the ghouls).

Then finally a third group which fights for a return to the status quo. Perhaps a CCG that exists with the same duty, but not using Quinque, and not dependent on the Washuu, V’s, or even having it necessary ghouls be alive if they are moving past the need for Quinque.

While there’s no doubt in my mind Hide himself sympathizes with Kaneki, the only reason for Marude’s forces not lending their hand to Goat in what could have been a two pronged attack that would easily have saved both sides from tragedy is that they do not sympathize with the rest of Goat’s cause, that is the protection of those innocent ghouls who are again the primary victim of this conflict. 

We’re warned of such by Tatara early on in the setup for this current arc. People will continue to fight as long as they find reasons for doing so. 

If Furuta’s goal is to bring an end to the meaningless fighting via one giant double suicide, then Marude’s goal may be the antithesis of that. To return to the fighting with a better leader in charge, perhaps Matsuri, or perhaps just himself, so that the fight against ghouls can be conducted more ethically from now on.

As the series has told us from the beginning though, the bird cage is something that needs to be smashed if a new world is ever to be born, not simply made more comfortable. 

Perhaps then the reason this conflict continues to take from the characters present in Marude’s group, the loss of Iwao noticably affecting both Urie and Marude is a consequence for this. As long as they only fight for the side of humans, they will never fully be able to see why this conflict propagates itself and therefore the conflict will continue to take and take from them.

What’s required is not a military coup against Furuta, better technology, but rather perspective and understanding of both sides.