Text ; Anonymous [cw;discussing cannibalism]

[anthropophagite]

[ baby's first network post and it'll be an anonymous text post, because Kaneki's priority is to know just how bad his situation really is without having others freaking out. He has thousands of questions, but none are as important as these: ]

Does anyone know what Ghouls are? Do they exist in your world? Do they exist here?

Comments

[pundemic]

[Seems like an awfully complicated concept. Is it just another word for cannibal? 'Like humans at first'? What is that, a fucking metaphor? One that skirts uncomfortably close to David?

Fuck David, he doesn't even deserve to be remembered in her worst nightmares, but the thought agitates her so completely that she has to get up and walk away from her tablet for a time. As hard as it was for him to write, it's just as hard for her to hear and it evokes some pretty nasty, bullshit memories that she has been trying her best to ignore.

Fuck.

So, it's a few minutes later before she types up a reply.]

seems like ur more informed than the rest of us. do u wanna know how to kill them or something??

[Sorry, Kaneki.]

[anthropophagite]

[ it's complicated, but kaneki is a special case since he is an hybrid and dangles around both worlds - Human and Ghoul. Everything is a mess and while he doesn't consider himself a ghoul, he can't call himself human anymore, either, which means that the way he describes ghouls is complicated because he speaks as both, unable to find the right way to do it.

Ghouls and humans are very different, but in many ways they are the same too.

A mess, everything is a huge mess.


but that question, and the use of the "K" word just freaks him out more ]

I don't want to kill anyone!

[pundemic]

i think eating humans kind of disqualifies anybody for that kind of mercy

[Maybe she'll feel bad if she ever finds out the truth of this poor kid's life, but right now her only metric is David, and his death wasn't nearly enough.]

are there any here u think?

[anthropophagite]

Ghouls can't eat anything else, even if they tried. I understand how it sounds, but they never asked to exist and be born like this, so they have no other choice.

And I don't know. I don't expect them to reply to this post if they are here.

maybe i should have slapped a cw on this lovely internal diatribe about cannibalism

[pundemic]

[Her kneejerk reaction is just to snap back, then they should starve. But the way he frames it afterwards, something that they didn't get to choose...

But then again, that's what people argue all the time, right? They say, we didn't have a choice. This is how we survive. She thinks of the meatlockers in that fucking town and feels a reflexive trigger of her gag reflex at the memory.

Just deer, David told her. She needs to believe that.]

do they people that are already dead like from natural causes? or kill them to eat them.

this whole post kind of is, so I'll but a cw ahah

[anthropophagite]

[ these questions... kaneki really hates to think about food. He always did. It makes him sick, it makes him sad. ]

It depends on the ghoul. There are many different ghouls. There are some who are always hungry and attack humans without remorse. There are some who do it, but live their lives carrying the weight of people's bones. [ Touka crosses his mind, actually. He knows she has killed, but he also knows how it weights on her, how she calls herself a murderer, and how she cares for her human friends at the same time. It's a very conflicting existence. ] There are ghouls who can't hunt, so they rely on other ghoul's kindness, which doesn't' always exist. [ Hinami-chan. ]

They can eat those who departed due to natural causes. But it's not that easy for a ghoul to find something like that.

[pundemic]

yeah i'd sure feel better knowing that someone regretted eating me. wow!! how awful for them.

assholes who do shit like that don't deserve to live. if they can't live without it maybe they shouldn't exist at all.

[Yep, that is her very black-and-white view of this subject.]

[anthropophagite]

[ tell that to a child who watched her mother being decapitated in the middle of the street ]

They already hear that everyday. [ he hears that. After all, he is part ghoul too ]

[pundemic]

[show her the child she absolutely will.

well. she might not. Ellie isn't heartless, but in this particular instance, she's very sheltered.]

and that's supposed to make me sympathetic?

[anthropophagite]

I don't expect that.
Your reaction is normal. You are normal.

[ even if it's an heartbreaking normalcy, to hear people say that ghouls are nothing but monsters that should be wiped out, aren't worth of being alive, and pretend to have any feelings. ]

[pundemic]

so y do u sound like u sympathize with them??

[What with all this 'they hear that every day' nonsense, and the way he freaked out about the thought of killing them. You can't afford to be a pacifist when there's a real threat at your door. Maybe he's just a kid.]

[anthropophagite]

Because I do.
I don't think they are things to be killed or monsters. They have feelings, they have families, and they are born into a complicated existence without being asked to, from the very first day they open their eyes.

I am scared of them. But I've seen more than just death and violence in their world.

[pundemic]

do u really think having feelings or family means u can't be a monster? bc i am pretty sure humans have been pretty fucking monstrous over the last whatever thousands of years and they have both those things.

[Wait that might actually strengthen his argument. Ellie frowns at herself.]

[anthropophagite]

That's right.

And that doesn't justify the extermination of our species, does it? Why does it justify theirs?

[pundemic]

[She wrinkles up her nose in distaste. She doesn't like the direction this conversation is gone in, and she's seriously tempted to just... stop talking to this person because sticking her fingers in her ears and going YOU'RE FUCKING WRONG at the top of her lungs seems a touch...

... immature.]

do i need to draw u a diagram about how eating humans is wrong, or...

[anthropophagite]

So is killing a mother right in front of her child.

[anthropophagite]

It doesn't matter. [ not to her. And not to any human in Kaneki's world. They don't want to see the grey between the black and white, because if they did, they'd be living a really difficult life, just like Kaneki is right now. ]

It is wrong. [ a lot is ] Thank you for answering.

[pundemic]

depends on what the mother's done.

[She's not enough of a monster to be able to say she's completely unmoved by the idea. Maybe she can even accept that a child born to that shitty life would be innocent up to a certain point. But she would have killed David in front of a hundred of his kids on a lit up goddamn stage without a fucking ounce of remorse, too. What does that make her?

She folds her arms uncomfortably. It takes her a while to come back to this to reply.]

who r u anyway?

[anthropophagite]

That doesn't matter either. [ he is obviously not going to out himself. Specially after she made it clear she thinks like every person back in Kaneki's world regarding ghouls. ]

[pundemic]

[Okay but now you've made her paranoid and she's going to do research on these damn things on her own time.]

suit urself dude.

[Annnd exit stage left. Besides arguing, she doesn't think there's anything else to be had from this conversation, and she's got a Lot to think about.]

[anthropophagite]

[ sorry for making your life harder ellie oooops ]