madghoulworld:

captainhunterman:

cirrocumulus-cloud:

linkspooky:

This also kind of sounds like character hate, but I’m once again going to publish the ask instead of deleting it to prove a point. Pretty much any relationship in TG would be an unhealthy relationship at this point, because these characters are jumping into relationships before they are fully formed people.

Even if Hide had suddenly appeared and started making out with Kaneki in 124+125, the resulting relationship would have been just as unhealthy because this is how Kaneki treats his relationships with all people. 

Even when Hide was Kaneki’s voice, his lone friend and connection to the world Kaneki was distant to him at almost all times. He never showed Hide when he was upset, or never confided him when he was in trouble. When Kaneki became a half ghoul, he spends the entire manga abandoning Hide rather than telling him because that abandonment was preferable because at least he was in control rather than Hide rejecting him after learning the truth in a way that he cannot control. 

Kaneki even says so himself, that his emotions towards Hide were so strong that he wasn’t able to do anything. It literally brought him to a stopping point. Kaneki wanting to see Hide so bad whenever they’re apart, but also unable to bring himself to actually face him does that exactly sound like a healthy relationship?

Any relationship with Kaneki at this point would be plagued with the same unhealthiness and communication issues. I mean look at how Kaneki is pretty content to accept Tsukiyama’s blanket forgiveness for his own actions because it’s more convenient and avoids a real confrontation. Look at how Kaneki breaks down crying and talks about his own loneliness when Akira says something as simple as “I need to figure these things out for myself and not depend on you.” This is pretty much how Kaneki acts with anybody, it’s not a Touken Specific thing. 

Avoidance and non-communication are pretty much his default settings. 

This is pretty spot on!

To be more specific about Hide and Kaneki as well as Hide and Touka, the main reason that Kaneki is an absolute failure as a healthy pick for a relationship is because he runs almost 100% on his emotions.

It’s what makes me think he is a terrible king, can only really function as a figurehead because Kaneki doesn’t move on his own, he stands still and waits for the world to swallow him whole. If people push him he moves until he can achieve that point of being a tree with no need to grow again. And if people treat him badly he lets that pass and blames himself.

Kaneki is an emotionally unstable person who’s a foil to both Hide and Touka in different ways.

This is how he approaches difficult situations:

• his mother abused him and years after her death HE still thinks he is the one f*cked up
• faced with the threat that if he doesn’t choose one person that will live by Yamori he freezes, both get killed and YEARS later he’s still reminiscing about this loss and can’t make his peace with it
• he shuts Hide out of his life for fear of being abandoned, so does the abandoning instead
• Arima treats him in this hot and cold way that is both trying to envelope him in warmth and throwing him into an icy lake and HE IS OKAY WITH IT because he’s never really felt any kind of parental love
• once he remembers who he is he shuts out the Quinx squad and still hasn’t resolved anything with any of them, basically shattering a family that he wanted for most of his life after said family just experienced terrible loss
• instead of facing the fact that he most likely killed his best friend, abandoned his new patchwork family, got brainwashed to act like a different person altogether…instead of moving on and trying to do better he suddenly wants to die in style because at least THEN he’s not a failure right?
• He never becomes King on his own terms, he got set up by Arima and Eto and despite the fact that Kaneki hates to be in leader situations and avoids them whenever he can he just…let’s all of this happen
• Touka tries to get close to him out of her own desires, wishes to help him overcome his suicidal tendencies and even though she succeeds it comes with that little bitter pill of not even having the courage to tell him about her pregnancy and Kaneki being totally oblivious to all of it because Kaneki is always wrapped up in his own problems and can’t properly deal with emotional problems of other people
• Hide hides from him for YEARS, most likely because Hide is smart enough to figure out that showing your anxiety filled friend that he ate parts of your face would put him in a state of self malice so big we haven’t seen it in the series yet

To explore the relationship between Kaneki and Touka and Hide respectively, let’s look at how he acts around them first.

Hide:

• despite being Hide’s best friend, Kaneki knows next to nothing about him
• due to being so wrapped up in his own head he fails to see how much Hide knows
• Kaneki puts Hide on a pedestal because he’s the closest thing to a family Kaneki has had for a long time, but is so emotionally scarred that he avoids him for a really long time and then, years down the line, can’t let go of his emotions concerning Hide
• since Hide represents everything that Kaneki is not he clings to his persona even in his head because he can’t talk himself out of terrible thoughts, but his imagined Hide can

Touka:

• while he didn’t know much about Hide, he straight up doesn’t let Touka into his personal bubble at all and can’t deal with the fact that she doesn’t sugarcoat things
• he never truly resolves any issues he has with her, he skirts around the issues as much as he can and can’t understand why Touka is a person with such a rash nature, so he tries his best to avoid conflict with her
• whenever Touka reaches out for him, he shuts himself away or has a meltdown and doesn’t know what to do

The thing is, Kaneki is an overly emotional person who prefers to stay out of conflict and pity himself instead of doing something about his situation. Hide, on the other hand, is a foil to him in that he acts almost exclusively based on logic, going to the point of hiding from his best friend for years. We don’t know who Hide is and we have almost no idea what his inner thoughts are, which makes him into such an unpredictable and dangerous figure as a whole. Kaneki never tried to understand Hide, Hide always did the understanding in his stead – even when it led him to most likely getting horribly maimed. But even Hide doesn’t know how to reach out to Kaneki, it takes him an entire series to do so and almost a whole series more to make himself known again.

Kaneki has such trouble dealing with Touka because she is both pushy but almost as bad as confiding in people as he is. And just like him she’s desperate in having some sort of healthy family. So she kisses him and sleeps with him and becomes pregnant, but hides it all from him out of fear of what he would do, how he would react, if it could put him into a downward spiral again or not. She’s utterly aware of his suicidal tendencies and hides the execution of her best friend from him because of it, because while Touka cares a ton about him, she’s utterly clueless in how to actually deal with these things. Touka lacks the clean analytical thinking that Hide uses, because she’s not ready to throw herself under the bus for Kaneki’s benefit, she wants to keep being with him – but that leads to her not being honest with him.

We have a main character that is a figurehead king full of anxieties and with no will in his bones to move on his own, a best friend who analyses everything and keeps himself away from him due to knowing how he ticks but doing nothing to reverse engineer Kaneki’s thinking mechanisms and a wife that loves him but selfishly prefers to hide major problems from him due to having no idea how to deal with his insecurities.

And none of that is healthy.

Both Hide and Touka love Kaneki – and Kaneki loves them both. But none of them had a heart to heart that results in them actually opening up to each other to the point that it changes them from the INSIDE. Kaneki hides from Hide that he is a ghoul, Hide hides from Kaneki that he knows this and then straight up hides from him for good. Touka hides from Kaneki that she is pregnant and that her best friend will be executed and Kaneki is completely oblivious to all of it, not to mention that he puts her on a pedestal for his reason to live. And she’s alright with suffering on her own and not knowing what to do because it keeps conflict that could harm Kaneki away from him, instead of tackling those issues together.

These guys all mean well. But they utterly suck at communication – and that is true for almost every character in Tokyo Ghoul. Just look at the Quinx squad and how their little patchwork family turned out.

A lot of these issues make me think that all of them are kinda acting like teenagers who think bottling up their feelings and letting things slide actually resolves shit. Like them not wanting conflict is the solution and that makes sense. Touka and Ken have never had romantic relationships with anyone else so the interactions might seem new to them, they are both sorta walking on eggshells trying to extend the honeymoon period. Hide was Ken’s only friend so he literally has 1 point of comparison, also Hide might have secluded himself cause of how much time he spent with Ken. They’re all just trying to solve the problems they have but alone instead of together. Trying to be the ones to fix shit by themselves.

I also feel that at least for Ken and Touka their issues harken back to both of their most basic problems. For Touks it’s her fear of abandonment she doesn’t want to lose him like Arata or Ayato who left for similar reasons -Out of a sense of revenge and to protect her. So she will avoid anything that might push him away. He already left her in TG so she has great cause to doubt him. So she is unwilling to bring up anything that might shake him. Apart of it is her trying to keep him comfortable due to the Kingship. But I think she is kinda afraid of their relationship cause she’s new to this. Also having her feelings reciprocated might make her even more worried. 

On Ken’s side he is still doing the ‘dont be a burden on people thing’ from his moms infamous be the one who gets hurt. He can never deal with guilt and always either blames himself or keep it buried in cause why burden others. When this always leads to issues, I mean him talking to Hide and not abandoning Touka would have stopped him from cannibalizing and doing half the shit in TG. Him actually confiding in the squad kids who legit cared for him would have helped smooth the transition. Another thing with the whole relationship dilemma is Ken’s inability to not put people on pedestals. I mean for him everyone is great. He put Akira on a pedestal and lost it when she said that she couldn’t feel the same for Ken as she did for Haise. His feelings towards Arima and the way he is still emulating him shows how much he wanted his approval and how much Ken is willing to let Arima do his thing. Putting Hide on a pedestal cause he isn’t as joyful or logical and he was never good with people and seeing Hide as his savior of sorts. And Touka she helped him a lot in TG and her love in re is just unmatched so obviously, he’s gonna do that. I feel he does that so he doesn’t have to accept their flaws as people, a reminder this is the same man who tried to hide his mother’s abuse FROM HIMSELF. If he accepts that others have flaws he will have to confront his own without a personality change. And that scares him. 

I do however feel that from a character stand point things are changing. Him saying to Touka that he wants to get married, that he will do what needs to be done for her and the Live and Protect thing shows he is at least very committed to this something he has a problem with unless he’s pushed into it. He is choosing to be with her and that’s good. He is taking responsibility and he’s also opening up to her and letting her join him. It seems he’s also found a reason to be King now instead of Arima and Eto’s plan he wants to make a safer world for his family which is as good as it gets with him.

Touka also was straight with Ken about Yoriko and the pregnancy I mean she probably was hesitant because she herself was scared and wasn’t sure if the baby is viable considering their unique situation. Ghoul mother human father. No doubt she wanted to protect him as well but again the conversation at the wedding must have allowed her to relax she seemed more at ease. Also, I feel that although he might not always react positively to her critique he does listen to her more than most. Heeds her words in TG on the bridge disbanding his group, in re one comment shakes him to his core ‘i’ll see you again,’ so I do think that he can change or work on his issues considering he has admitted he was wrong on several occasions. I also feel her choice on Yoriko has also allowed Ken to see her commitment and could help him deal with the guilt he feels over the others. I feel it might also allow him to make more decisions instead of letting things happen.

Hide is a bit harder to pin down due to how little we know but again I think if Ken just realizes how much he has shut him out and them dealing with it would improve their relation dynamically. Hide has helped him a lot but is interesting because of how he understands Ken but doesn’t want to upset him by bringing up his issues. Like he doesn’t want to hurt him with confrontation even if it could solve bigger issues. Hide confronting Ken about being a ghoul would have changed a lot of TG. Why he does this is sorta lost on me , he cares for him and is logical so it makes it a weird character bit. I think the way that Ken has changed after his Black Reaper role and Hide’s assumed development in 3 years will lead to a better relationship. 

Just to add a point about Touka and Ken, not sure if it belongs here or not though. I think it is interesting how Touka and Ken seem to have parallel but opposite development that mostly manifests with the whole breaking the egg metaphor.

Ken always avoided conflict and tried to live within whatever restrictions others placed on him (similar to that part about him and Arima saying yes to whatever they are ordered to do, Ken thrives in that sort of environment because it absolves him of responsibility) but was then pushed into a position where the only real viable option is breaking the egg and revolting.

Touka on the other hand started with wanting to change things with whatever means possible (let’s kill all the doves/ I won’t rest till every last one of them is dead) to her accepting that we can only live while we lose so she doesn’t bother trying to change anything anymore even when presented with the option. Any mention of planning for raising the status of ghouls is met with a pretty meh reaction on her part. She has locked herself in a cage of low expectations (I am sure this can relate nicely to her bird/broken wing symbolism but I am too hungover to even try to write that down) because that means minimal risk of losing the ones she loves.

Ken pushes them away to keep them safe while Touka tries to keep them close. They both have the same basic emotional immaturity (Touka handles it a lot better though) but they just go about it in different ways.

I am not going to reread what I just wrote because I am pretty sure most of it makes no sense but I got some of those random thoughts out of my head. Might try to organize them better once I have some coffee in my system.