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gunkbaby · 4 months ago

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rambling abt how i used to feel abt shuu in TG’s ending and why i think i was wrong (+ part of what he means 2 me)

I remember back in 2021, i was into this idea that Shuu didn’t get a happy ending at the end of tg:re, because the characters that got ‘happy’ endings were shown to be in heteronormative relationships - married, with a child or multiple - whilst characters like Shuu didn’t have that.

I think at the time, myself - maybe other ppl - took this as being kind of queerphobic, or at least unsatisfactory to the queer characters. The ‘Shuu Tsukiyama deserved better’ of it all.

And whilst yes, Shuu Tsukiyama did indeed deserve better; in hindsight I do so strongly disagree with this idea I had. I think it relies on a particular interpretation of the story, which I don’t think I agree with. I think maybe, some of this idea did come from people who maybe didn’t like TouKen being canon - and whilst I don’t necessarily like how TouKen became canon, I think maybe I got swept up in this interpretation too.

It wasn’t so much that I wanted Shuuneki to be canon or anything - it was much the opposite. I thought that Shuu should not have been so unwillingly faithful to Kaneki after the Tsukiyama Extermination, that he had earned a moment of scorn, he had earned the right to ‘split’, you could say. This isn’t necessarily an idea I wholly disagree with, but I was going about it in the wrongly. I thought about the ending in a very black and white way - Shuu not having that moment, to me, meant the ending was void. He was living in false happiness - forced to watch the man he loved be happy whilst he was still a glorified dog. I thought he needed to be away from Kaneki to be truly happy, and I think that was the issue with my idea.

I think the reason I so strongly resonated with this interpretation of the ending as being subpar and Shuu not getting his flowers was also very much my projection onto Shuu. I think my anger was still very much aimed at how the ending came, but I misplaced it.

At the time, I myself was experiencing my first ’BPD moment’ I suppose? I’d come online and actively engaged with a fandom for the first time in my life outside of Wattpad. I didn’t know what I was doing or what was happening, my social skills were (and are) nonexistent - I left school at 13 and the only person I’d really interacted with since was my abuser and doctors. I was awful at it all. When I started to get mutuals and the like, I was really quite inappropriate - clingy and unaware, unstable and nuclear. I fucked up a lot of myself because of it, and I still have to recover from it even now. So, with that in mind, as someone with BPD, who was that inappropriately co-dependant person - and who is now aware of that fact - nowadays, I look at Shuu’s ending with less comtempt, and a lot more optimism.

I think now that Shuu’s happy ending would never have been to be with Kaneki - only in an ideal world that serves our illnesses. Him learning to grow past this limerence, to see Kaneki in a way that isn’t so ride or die, and to maintain a healthy, platonic relationship with him, feels perfect. It gives me hope as someone with BPD, that I might not be doomed to always be quite a toxic person in regards to having any kind of relationship. You can argue that I’m arguing abt the ‘single is better’ trope or whatever terminally online thing it is now, but I don’t see it like that.

When I think about it now, I think Shuu’s ending was perfect for him. Now, I look at him through my ‘BPD gaze’ (eurgh) and see this ending as something very hopeful. The idea of being able to exist with this person you’ve been so obsessed with, in a way that does not create a detriment to yourself, and to exist and have a seemingly normal, healthy friendship with that person - it’s kind of the dream. For me, at least - personally I dream to have relationships that don’t lead to me embarrassing myself on the internet and in public and ending up relapsed and on a ward. Just me, maybe.

I take his ending nowadays as something quite hopeful.

Shuu’s arc in :re, to me, has always been symbolic of recovery. When I first read it, I was in therapy, specifically in an eating disorder clinic - Shuu’s own recovery from anorexia meant I could do it too. His softening of his depression meant I stood a chance too. His seeming abandonment of his ‘Gourmet’ persona I compared to myself, in learning to let go of my idea of myself as an anorexic. Him learning to possess and lean into his own empathy, to embrace feelings and ideas of himself that contradicted this idea of a civilised, ferocious man-eating predator, to love with less shame - to me it appeared as a story of learning to embrace that possessing humanity is not a weakness. To be human is so confusing, but it can be so ethereally freeing.

Shuu’s story has felt like a lot of things to me. It’s learning to abandon the adoration one possesses for the idea of the self, understanding that to continue living in such a way leads to self-destruction. But also, that to self-destruct is to rebirth. We are constantly self-annihilating and rebuilding ourselves from our ashes.

I’m reminded of the Fire lily - a flower that exists in fire-prone areas of the cape of South Africa. The lily is unique, lying dormant for many, many years, and particularly difficult to cultivate; as it relies on smoke from surrounding wildfires to bloom. So it requires a level of destruction and ravage to bloom, and it is so, so beautiful. In the process, the lily becomes the only source of pollen in the area, so it becomes crucial for the other species in the area. As the other plants in the area return, the lily dies, and returns underground, until the next fire.

To me, Shuu’s story feels like a cycle of nature and destruction. He goes from this idea of the apex predator, through an annihilation, to a rebirth.

His story - his character - despite itself, has felt painfully human. The fear of aligning yourself with humanity, the pain of existing within a species that has become little but an arrogant pest. Which feels so ironic. It’s hard to speak on this, maybe I’m not smart enough, and though I don’t feel like one, I have only ever lived as a human, and that is my only perspective. So maybe him feeling so human is major projection, and I’m wrong, but I see it in Shuu. How he denies things like friendship and kinship with humans, how he tries to put himself on a pedestal - I read this as a side-effect of alienation and loneliness. He doesn’t quite fit in with ghouls where he should, but to accept that you do not fit in because you are strange - there is something wrong with you - is very painful, so it’s much easier to become arrogant. He feels so in denial of his loneliness, of a need for companionship; and that, to me, feels very human. He wants to fit in, maybe he wants to be something other than othered, but he’s in denial of this, and he’s in denial of his flaws - the flaws that alienate him - so he remains stagnant, waiting for the inevitably of self-destruction. Shuu was never going to stay as he was, if Kaneki hadn’t threw him off course, he would’ve fallen anyway.

Living things need to experience a pain or discomfort to grow back stronger. Winter is a necessary season of life that none are spared. Shuu’s story feels like that - a season cycle.

There’s a lot more I could say about him, his story and what it means to me, but I am rambling and getting all purple prose-y.

Again, I stress that I do still feel dissatisfied by Shuu’s arc in re - he did indeed, ‘deserve better’. Much like myself at 17, I do wish this journey of limerence to a healthy, platonic relationship had been better expanded upon. Shuu questioning Kaneki, experiencing a moment of scorn - I do think of that idea often, just not like I used to. His ‘deserved better’ isn’t the ending, but the progression to it. My problem with Shuu’s writing is post-Tsukiyama extermination arc - so it links into my problem with most of the Tsukiyama Family characters, and Chiehori - there is very little attention given to Shuu post this arc. When there is, it’s good on paper, but this aspect of his arc is not shown consistently strongly enough. We don’t see this sort of ‘journey of self-improvement’. Shuu kind of comes back and he’s just, better. Personally, I think there should have been more nuance to this arc - and I think I thought that back in 2021 too, but I was angry at the wrong thing.

I think Tokyo Ghoul’s flaws often come from the fact that the idea behind it is so huge - there is so much stuff you can do with it. For worldbuilding and character ideas alone. The plot it considers sometimes feels too small to be satisfying for the world it exists in. The characters are so often written too richly, and there are too many of them - this is both a highlight and a hinderence of it. It has too much stuff, implied and not. I do believe a lot of the dissatisfaction I was experiencing with TG in 2021 was because I didn’t quite understand that fact. I think I kind of resented the series, and Ishida, for it. Nowadays, I don’t really care. I’ll just pose my own ideas and write what I would’ve - fanfiction is wonderful in that. Maybe I understood what my issue with TG truly was, finally, or maybe I’m just not 17 anymore.

#Long post #brain is fried #i need to go clean now #Sorry just had to get this off my chest #Idk if this makes sense #It’s jargon!#Who cares!#might delete later #gunk #shuu tsukiyama #shuucore #analysis #shuu analysis #tokyoghoulcore #tg gunk #Longggggg #tokyo ghoul

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isjasz · 2 months ago

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[Ready for a new game?]

day 11 definitelynottober - heart in your fist & week 1 weeklyhermittober - beginnings

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IM SO READY LETSGO SO EXCITED FOR THE NEW LIFE SERIES💥💥💥💥💥💥

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hayden-christensen · 4 months ago

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PREQUELS APPRECIATION WEEK 2024 DAY 5: FOUND FAMILY ▸ ANAKIN SKYWALKER & OBI-WAN KENOBI

“Anakin.” Obi-Wan’s voice had gone soft, and his hand was warm on Anakin’s arm. “There is no other Jedi I would rather have at my side right now. No other man.” Anakin turned, and found within Obi-Wan’s eyes a depth of feeling he had only rarely glimpsed in all their years together; and the pure uncomplicated love that rose up within him then felt like a promise from the Force itself. “I … wouldn’t have it any other way, Master.” [insp]