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bigowlenergy · 5 years

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Notes on Gender, Ethnicity, and Culture

At the heart of the etoneki conflict/drama is nothing more than culture clash.

Eto may be amazing at studying others and have replicated humanity well enough to be a respected author among humans without anyone finding any clues to her ghoul nature, not even Haise in RE: - but she is still someone who was raised by ghouls. Her base nature is as a ghoul, from the 24th ward specifically. Naturally, there’s going to be some confusion between her and Kaneki, who was raised by humans.

But that leaves the good good question of what those differences should be. Clearly, some should be tiny, but there NEED to be huge misunderstandings bc I live for that kind of drama. Also, it’s a slowburn, so. that’s how it is.

this is long, and tagged for spoilers for a good reason. nothing specific, but if u like being surprised by the plot in ur grapefruit, go no further as of chapter 5

1) Ghouls have ABO while humans do not. Sure, there was a decently long time where Kaneki lived among ghouls, but can u picture early chapter Touka willingly sitting him down and giving the birds and the bees and the grasshoppers and also the spiders Talk? I think not. Maybe Kouma? Itori would. Like, they’d both kill him dead with it, but they would. And knowing the contexts within another culture doesn’t mean that you have assimilated those words/concepts to your own yourself, or that you actually know every single social detail, especially as it applies to others.

...but Eto does. And human gender/sexuality is fairly simple on the whole, except when it isn’t, so she has a leg up on him there.

plus, the way I have the ABO structured, it makes a bit more sense for him to be less aware of it, since his gender, as perceived by ghouls, is the most privileged one. Especially since its associated with deliberate power gain, which he totally played into during the later half of the first TG, so it would be a natural assumption for ghouls to make that he understood that he was acting exactly as his gender is socially expected to. and in a way that would socially cement his powerful omega status.

Tsukiyama would totally say something about it, since with the whole affluent family thing he’d probably be very aware of gender and social dynamics, but anything shuu says can be followed by “and he called me a cabbage in French last week, so okay shuu, whatever poetics ‘omega’ means to u, go ahead, have your fun buddy.” Banjou, who was involved with Rize, would be too worried about offending him or making it embarrassing to say anything. and as a ghoul even lower than shuu, he’d be super conservative about getting up in an omega’s business. It would just be this ambiguous open secret that everyone but Kaneki is totally, painfully aware of. the gasmask trio find this hilarious. Hina is a wee bab whose parent was a doctor for ghouls, so she just accepts her big bro as is.

so there’s eto’s expectations to be basically an underling to someone powerful as a normal, comfortable relationship dynamic, pitted against kaneki’s human-embedded inclination toward monogamy and not something that feels like weird bdsm domination stuff. they each are expecting a certain treatment from one another, and not getting it. eto feels neglected, since he isn’t all in her business and allowing her to settle in the shadow of his power and just ride things out, and kaneki, with only human expectations for sex, gender, and whatever the hell just happened, expects the worst from her as the “““male”““ in the relationship who manipulated him.

the conflict is that neither happens.

all of the power is on his side of the court, but in human terms, it feels like the opposite - vis a vis, human misogyny and all the horrible expectations for a sex and reproduction based marriage system that go along with that.

which is why i’ve inverted all that to make myself feel better :)

2) i kicked knots out bc idk about that business, but there have to be other physical differences. there have to be, or its boring. and then again, since both are hybrids, what should either have?

i’ve decided eto will have all physical differences or a learned equivalent due to ghoul socialization, while kaneki should have none but whatever was forced on him through his kakuhou - ie, pheromone stuff, but nothing more.

ghouls can purr, bc i am weak to that shit. Kaneki is aware of this. it’s just a Thing that they do. he’s read to Hina and she’s fallen asleep purring before and it was adorable. irimi purrs very quietly when she cleans things. uta is a purr machine when he makes masks, and it knocks yomo out unless he’s drunk, then he just purrs like a truck engine from the floor near uta’s desk for three hours. touka hasn’t purred since ayato left

eto purrs when she’s satisfied with her writing flow, which is one of the main reasons she prefers to work alone in her apartment and keep shiono out. otherwise, she doesn’t mind company. she also purrs when happy, like most ghouls. kaneki does not. i can site Haise’s RC scan on this: since he never took damage to the throat, he never had a chance to heal ‘more ghoul’ in that area.

so the exchange of a happy eto, deeply content with their uneasy peace, purring to express such delight, meets a blank wall that doesn’t agree. her social expression of happiness clashes up against kaneki only maybe leaning toward physical affection and being quiet. he can understand that she is happy, and she can understand that he can’t respond in the same way, but the dynamics of their relationship make her doubt her actions and get instinctually afraid of doing something wrong and upsetting someone much more powerful than her who also decides if she is allowed to reproduce with him or not. and stops purring and gets unsettled. kaneki is only confused and maybe she doesn’t like being touched? time to touch less. oh no, she did do Something Wrong and now omega is mad at her!! interpersonal drama escalates on both sides >:3c

ghouls have great night vision. kaneki also does and you know why. youve read the series. full ghouls have tapetum lucidum in both eyes, but eto only has it in her single ghoul eye. her vision is unbalanced in the dark but due to her learning to compensate for the slight reduction in light capture on one side she gets by just fine. it also parallels nicely with arima’s poor eyesight and learning to compensate for it.

ghouls are crepuscular while humans are diurnal, but this doesn’t matter since neither of etoneki know what a sleep schedule is. and the 24th ward doesn’t experience day/night cycles, so they have their own issues with sleeping when safe, do not sleep when not safe.

ghouls tend toward pack structure, but not in a rigid way where there can only be one omega/powerful ghoul per unit. as long as everybody gets along personally, its fine. omega don’t see each other as competition. alpha toss themselves at their feet without prompting. they’re not a scarce resource. alpha don’t even really fight over omega unless completely affected by heat and rut cycles and unable to grasp the concept of maybe next time. but even that is rare, mostly only those who are jealous as a person attempt this. if alpha fight over an omega and one wins, the omega might just kill them for taking away some of their prospects, or might be impressed by the show of strength. or annoyed by it, bc they want weak underlings. depends on the person. (eto is more than a bit possessive, at least for his first heat.)

more on this point as i think of it.

3) I haven’t specified kaneki’s personal gender identity for a reason. that reason is that i’m not sure what direction i want to go. this is strictly for maman, not Sugar, which is trans girl Sasako forever. for this piece of feti/sh garbage? whom knows! (I know. and until word of god says otherwise - i’m god - every character is trans.)

but really, there’s options. and i love them all.

A) kaneki was trans all along. hide is best bi bud. aunt was a bitch, but nothing worse than canon since he was closeted at the time, although he doubly prepared to never speak to her again. (true neutral)

B) woke up a ghoul and with new parts. why believe a species change but not a sex change, eh? heightens the early game confusion and search for id as a person whose major ids have changed against his will. (lawful neutral)

C) gradual transformation. like how he came into his strength as a ghoul slowly. read a doujin like this once. was okay. quality art, big titties, 8/10. ngl would read the sequel. (Perhaps I am writing the sequel? aren’t we all just chasing our Brands across the lonely internet, hopping from one computer virus to the next? maybe u die reading hentai, or u live long enough to see urself post to ao3.) (chaotic neutral)

D) heals himself a new set of parts due to intense damage. see the haise RC chart, which has a ton of pathways around the hips/torso area. parallels with cutting eto in half?? (also lawful neutral)

E) started happening as a transformation when eto’s pheromones triggered his heat cycle for the first time. boy would he be pissed at her X2 lmao (lawful evil)

F) transformation during #240 time due to losing all memory and only having instinct to structure his body with, and just enough RC pathways to make a hormone based transformation possible. Chiba would have had a field day, but also would have torn out his horrible bowl cut in confusion. get rekt bud. not even #240 knows wtf goin on (neutral evil)

G) maybe he just wanted a vag! thought about that?? learns he is supposed to be able to manipulate his flesh like his kagune, which he is canonically great at, and just Goes For It. it works. he is a strong, dependent idiot who don’t need no dick. (iconic)

H) same as above, but that’s just what Haise does when he has the reigns. looks deep into his pastless self and asks ‘do i have to put up with this cis nonsense? not today.’ (chaotic iconic)

I) it happens suddenly when he activates his kakuja for the first time. queer the monster transformation u wish to see in the world. just. so confused. but also there’s Guilt to be felt about banjou and amon and such, so that’s back burner. (chaotic evil)

okay, so in like fifteen minutes i was able to name 9 perfect opportunities for ishida to carry though the motif of 1)iding with female ghouls 2)paralleling with canon trans man mutsuki 3)litcherally having a female ghoul organ donation fiasco 4)being associated with vacillating between masculine yang and feminine yin black/white 5)having a narrative that revolved around accepting his body and learning to find his own strength and id that is different than what he was born with - but coward ishida stopped sixty miles short of the mark. fool. I Cannot Feast Upon Crumbs, Sir. Sir, You Have Given Me Airplane Peanuts For Supper. Sir, I Am Starving And Antagonistic At Best.

(i shouldn’t call him a coward. three huge series magically having the same Wife And Kids ending all during the time shinzou abe is in office? probably not a coincidence. hope they got a good payout for it. i’d sell out for that $$$ too tbh)

eto is just an alpha. her human social id is a Normal Human Female Who Is Totally Cis and Straight for maximum social acceptance and ease of integration, but that’s only her mask. her personal id is an alpha, which is cis by ghoul standards, and she uses she/her pronouns bc she feels like it. she has the power to id as above alpha, but she enjoys the social invisibility it gives her, since she can blend in the background whereever and noone looks at her presumably weak ass twice. like chie, but for nefarious purposes.

....does that make her the equivalent of a ghoul feminist? i’m getting Too Deep

4) the wards can be isolated and far apart, and its been explored in canon with the Three Blades family and the white suites - congrats u 2 - and ghoul organizations that have a home ward having distinct cultural differences from one another. small ethnic groups and isolated diaspora? natives? subset?? of whatever the 24th ward ghouls - sorry, tokyo humans - are.

this sort of thing is only tangentially related to kaneki. if someone with a texas accent teaches someone to speak english, that person will have that accent, whether they’v ever been to texas or not. so he has some of the social mannerisms of a 20th ward ghoul, but generally still has a lot of ingrained human attributes to confuse them.

5) i’m still fascinated by the half finished thought about there are just some ghouls who become binge eaters in canon. like Rize wasn’t special for it. I think shinohara mentioned this?? but. it makes sense. general food insecurity, lack of permanent social support, total oppression, absurd power levels, plenty of humans to take it out on...ye.

and kaneki has the kakuhou of an adult binge eater. there’s cool hints of the kakuhou being parasitic, so a mature one would def fall into the biological fulfillment of binge eating for strength and carry that genetic knowledge into a new host. and from there, it would induce cravings, serotonin reward systems, and all that good stuff to get what its come to like.... like, mayhaps, a cordycepts? ;)

well, i’ve put ‘binge eater’ down as just a general omega trait, since it feels authentic to do so, so we’ll see what i do with this in the future. i will also see, since i too am ignorant of my own self. what will my horny subconscious do next? i am usually the last to know.

anyway,

peace

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