art sometimes

Not healing well? Eat basically any flesh, hydrate and rest.

Recovering from starvation or blood loss? Drink marrow broth and eat liver.

Broken bones, or having weak bones in the first place? Well eat some bones then.

Sore joints? Eat cartilage and hydrate. Skin can work as a substitute, but it's not nearly as good.

Dry or flaky skin, skin that splits (rather than actually being cut) from things ghouls aren't normally injured by, or brittle hair? Eat skin and fat, and hydrate.

Get cold easily? Eat fat and fatty meats, and liver.

Yes i'm dropping another study (original on the left)

I knooooow this waiting is so painful lol. At least it’s almost over?  

I think Urie has to open that goshdarn mouth and tell Mutsuki he loves him. It’s too late to call him on stuff because Mutsuki knows Urie j owe, but what Mutsuki doesn’t know is that Urie loves him. Mutsuki’s greatest desire is to be loved and feel safe, and Urie is able to meet that. If he doesn’t they’re all dying here as there is no path forward for any of them in that case; there’s no other narrative way for Urie to overcome this flaw. 

Let’s discuss Urie and three patterns: failing to be strong, failing to save people, and being saved by people. 

For the first, failing to be strong: he’s already overcome it. He failed against major ghoul opponents: Big Madam, Noro, and then Amon and Donato. And then he succeeded against Roma by making his peace with what happened to his father. Was his realization perfect? No. But it was progress.

Failing to save people… Urie’s failed to save his father (he likely views himself as not enough since his father chose his squad over coming home to him), Shirazu, he failed to save Mutsuki from Torso, and Kuroiwa so far (making his fight with Roma a pyrrhic victory). 

He’s got to save Mutsuki now or why would we believe he’d be able to save anyone. He’s capable of overcoming this, I believe it. 

Urie’s also been saved by people, which establishes a pattern that he needs to participate in. He lashed out first at Mutsuki and Mutsuki empathized with him, sparking his love for Mutsuki. And then he lashed out at Saiko and she saved him specifically by telling him she loves him. Urie’s got all the tools he needs to save Mutsuki. He loves him, and he knows being told that can save someone.

So, after reading this meta which reminded me of this ask an anon sent me awhile ago, let’s talk love:

Mutsuki’s love for Kaneki

Hinami’s love for Kaneki

Kaneki’s love for Touka

Hide’s love for Kaneki

Saiko’s love for Mutsuki 

Saiko’s love for Urie

Tsukiyama’s love for Kaneki 

Touka’s love for Kaneki 

Urie’s love for Mutsuki

What do these types of love have in common? They’re a mixture of romantic, platonic, unclear, requited, unrequited, etc. But they all… have flaws that need to be worked on. Love is one of TG’s main themes. Therefore, it makes sense that Ishida’s exploring the flaws and limits of love. 

Mutsuki isn’t the dark version of these loves. It’s not Kaneki’s love=good, Mutsuki’s=bad. Rather, Mutsuki is the mirror exposing what the flaws of these loves. They aren’t healthy. Which does not mean any of these loves are doomed (well Mutsuki’s for Kaneki’s is, because it is the one the narrative is most unquestionably identifying as unhealthy, and I would say it’s the most unhealthy), or that there aren’t beautiful, healthy aspects of these loves too because there hella are, but rather that they need work to be all that they could be (aka, to save Kaneki). The Quinxes all are mirrors for these loves, actually, with their Ace counterparts–Saiko also functions as a mirror for Hide, and Urie for Touka.  

I already wrote a meta on Mutsuki and Hinami awhile ago, but whether or not Hina’s love for Kaneki has any romantic element, the same principle still applies. She’s looking to Kaneki to meet her needs, and he can’t do that (and through no fault of his own). Her identity is partially rooted in him, rather than in the value of her own life. Mutsuki’s identity is also rooted in Kaneki, in looking to him for approval rather than to someone better suited and willing to meet his needs (Urie, and Ayato for Hinami).

  Mutsuki is willing to go to great lengths to get Kaneki back. He is willing to arrest Yoriko and risk her execution, and kill Touka just to get Kaneki back. Kaneki, too, is willing to go to extreme lengths: despite being terribly afraid of hurting children like his mother throughout the entire series, he kills 100 children just to see Touka again (even when he’s making his choice in 144 he thinks of humans as better than ghouls, so he wasn’t doing it to save ghouls). 

But let’s move on to the Aces. Mutsuki is willing to forgive Kaneki all wrongdoings if he just comes back. 

That’s exactly what Tsukiyama did. Tsukiyama, remember, was also someone who has been violently obsessed with Kaneki, and who functions with high degrees of self-deception. Tsukiyama’s love for Kaneki almost killed him and he moved past it with the love of his family when he fought Kaneki on the Tower, but when they’re dead, he focuses on Kaneki again. He needs to remember Karren, and the others. Which is not the same as me saying he should abandon Kaneki because that isn’t what I’m saying. 

Hide, too, is willing to forgive Kaneki anything. Even Kaneki eating half his face. He won’t even tell Touka what happened. Hide’s love enables Kaneki to fall prey to his worst instincts, and it always has. But in the end when his inaction leads to disaster he rallies everyone to help. 

Saiko, like Hide, is willing to forgive anybody anything. She is the mirror showing the flaws in Hide’s love. She doesn’t want to lose anyone. Which is good. But she knew something was wrong with Mutsuki and only decided to act when her friend Yoriko was threatened–and then rallied Urie to act in her stead, foiling Hide in that respect. 

Her lack of action regarding Mutsuki is very, very apparent in the story. Additionally, Mutsuki’s “it would all be okay if you came back sensei” can be compared to Saiko with Urie, whom, like Mutsuki with Kaneki, she tries to push her own agency onto rather than taking agency for her own decisions. If Kaneki is Mutsuki’s security blanket, Urie is Saiko’s (though it used to be Shirazu).

Touka, herself, also says that as long as Kaneki comes back, it will all be okay. 

While Touka’s love for Kaneki is far healthier than Mutsuki’s and I’m not saying it isn’t, the sentiment is still as long as he comes back I’ll be okay (though to be fair, Touka did express the opposite during the Rose Arc: she stated that she just wanted Kaneki to be happy. She let him go, which again is where the contrast with Mutsuki comes in, and why Touken is not doomed or even close). 

Urie is more like Touka, too, I think: they know something is wrong with the people they love, but choose not to say anything when the evidence confronts them. These two scenes are almost certainly meant to be compared:

Touka knows Kaneki’s floundering as king, but would rather discuss their future (her choice in this scene was a good one for her child, but she can still choose Kaneki and the baby and confront him). Urie, too, would rather discuss the future and his romantic prospects with Mutsuki than confront Mutsuki. And so, Kaneki and Mutsuki both spiral. Kaneki becomes a monster who killed children. Mutsuki’s attacking a pregnant woman. 

Anyways, where does this lead? To the same place. Either they can’t save Mutsuki, and his demise opens the door for them to understand just where they’re all going wrong, and his death shows them what their lack of holding Kaneki accountable leads to. But I think that would be hard to pull off narratively, because Touka, Shuu, and Hide don’t know Mutsuki enough to care about him, or the Qs well enough to understand just what his death would mean or do to them. Plus, the foreshadowing Mutsuki helps stop Dragon. Or, they have to save Mutsuki. And seeing how the Quinx save Mutsuki and realize their own flaws might help the Aces do just that too, and help them realize that saving Kaneki is not just dragging him out of Dragon, but rather it’s a process that will continue after he’s taken out. 

Yeah, it’s the exact same thing Urie said to him back in the auction arc, which increases my suspicion that this is setting up a deliberate parallel.

Urie: isolates himself from the rest of the Qs, focusing on his individual goal: promotion.

Mutsuki: isolates himself from the rest of the Qs, focusing on his individual goal,: Sasaki.

Urie: during a very important mission puts Mutsuki in danger to pursue his selfish goal.

Mutsuki: during a very important mission puts everyone in danger to pursue his selfish goal.

Urie: when everything goes wrong, tells Mutsuki and everyone to die:

Mutsuki: tells Urie (maybe, depending on the translation) to die:

Predictions: Mutsuki will wound Urie in the abdomen:

And then we may just get a parallel of this scene:

There’s been a previous comparison made between the Saiko, Urie and Mutuski confrontation and the Akira, Amon and Seidou confrontation. While the situations are not exactly the same (they don’t have to be for the sake of parallels) there are several things in common. 

The aggressor is an individual who after becoming a victim of torture has their hair turn white and suffers from severe dissociation. 

The defenders and in both cases, the ones attempting to rescue the victim are also people who have for a long time neglected any cronfrontation at all with the victim and let them stew until it boiled over, and they ended up with the worst possible time for a confrontation.

However, the most important point of comparison between them for me is this. The two confrontations end on opposite notes, the message Seidou is told is this: 

While the message Mutsuki is told is this: 

The exact implications for the resolutions and final messages of both fights lead reflect some interesting ideas in both parties and can probably lead us towards some predictions on where exactly Mutuski’s arc will go next. So let’s head there under the cut.