I haven't actually been here for any holidays yet, so I guess I'll know more about how I feel about it after next week. But I wonder if there might be someone, or something, causing these things to happen.
You know someone is causing the manmade ones, but you said that people get gifts on Christmas. But nobody actually knows who they're coming from, right?
I don't know what caused the soul-stealing; it's possible one of the other Pokémon was responsible. Maybe one of the gods, maybe a swarm of normal ones that just had the advantage of numbers...
Either way, it's a good question, since the gods in question are still allowing things like that to happen in the first place.
Yeah. It doesn't really make sense. Even if things turned out okay in the end, that still doesn't mean they should be happening at all. Especially if these Pokemon are powerful enough to stop it.
One of the other effects of this world is that we can't die. I'll spare you the details of exactly how I know this, though I'll reassure you that it wasn't because I was hunting; I imagine the process isn't very nice, but once it's over with apparently we just wake up in a nearby Pokémon Center, with all fatal injuries healed.
Why should these gods have any interest in protecting us? If we die, we'll just come back.
If I were feeling really pessimistic, I'd think that perhaps we're just here for their entertainment...but this is a lot of effort to go through just to get some new playthings, and there's no sense in rendering us uninteresting by making all of us human. So I genuinely don't think that's it; at the same time, they don't have any particular incentive to care about us, either.
[...seeing as this is the first time Kaneki has heard anything about being unable to die, it's difficult for him to believe it. "But why would Tsukiyama lie about something like that?" is his first thought, and he has to stop himself because that sort of thinking is exactly what got him into so much trouble before, isn't it-
But that doesn't matter right now, and this is still over text. It's fine.
He still has to take a moment to think about that, though. It's...not a pleasant thought, to be sure.]
...even if that's true, there has to be more to it than that. Putting it that way sounds like they might be making these things happen just to see how we'll react or letting them happen if they aren't causing them outright, and if we get ourselves killed it doesn't matter because we can't die anyway.
And why would they go to the trouble of giving us gifts or things from home, then? Just to make us happier here so we won't want to leave?
[...Tsukiyama, you might want to elaborate so that doesn't sound completely bugfuck insane.]
That's what this world is based around, isn't it? Some sort of game? Maybe these are the trials we're being put through because the plot necessitates it.
I'd imagine it's some extreme version of what's found in the original games, but I've never played. Isn't the point to capture literally everything?
[...the most he knew back in Tokyo is that Pikachu is everywhere and Jigglypuffs are one of the many pink things running around, and so he just sort of assumes that everything pink is a Jigglypuff until proven otherwise.]
...that's the thing. I don't. And there are a lot of others who probably don't either, for whatever reason.
But there have to be some people here who do, and would try to do whatever they could to win.
[Even if that means...catching all the gods, apparently.]
So...I don't know why these gods would bring people here who wouldn't be so likely to even try to win if that meant they had to go back after they did.
There are a lot of things that don't make much sense in this world, Kaneki-kun - I've seen several things that don't suit estabished patterns, and I have yet to find any reason why.
Banjou-san and I have talked about this before, a little. Naki-san and I were the first to be brought here; Banjou-san and I don't understand why people like us would be brought here first, instead of you or Hinami-chan. There's also the fact that Team Rocket seems to attract its share of dubious morality, but for some reason I was exempted from it.
I'm not sure what answers there are for things like that, just as I don't know if there's an answer for what you're asking.
Maybe there isn't one. I don't like the idea that all of this happens "just because it happens", but if there aren't any actual answers then I don't know why else they would.
[He considers stopping there, but something compels him to keep going, after a moment.]
...to tell you the truth, It doesn't really matter to me. I don't know how I got here, or why I'm here, but...that doesn't make me want to go back home.
I'm not going to encourage you to change your mind, amore. If we get sent back, then we do, and there's nothing to be done about it, but it's understandable for you to not pursue it.
If this is what you want, then it's what I want for you.
[He isn't really sure what to say to that, if anything. For a little while he just...doesn't.]
Thank you, Tsukiyama-san.
[He types something else after that, erases it, and then types it again.]
But even after everything...it feels selfish for me to want that. Especially when I could just go back at any time. I could be here for years, or I could go back tomorrow.
[Go back to being taken away by Aogiri Tree, and...then what? Back to everything the way it was. Worse.]
What you want, and what you like about this place, is a lack of suffering. It's a very basic desire, and it's actually the core of epicureanism - the path to happiness can be found in a lack of suffering, and the ability to seek pleasure in fleeting things simply because they're fleeting to begin with.
All things in life are temporary, Kaneki-kun, including and especially life itself. Why should anything we seek be permanent? Even if you're sent home sooner than you would like, that doesn't devalue the experience that you had here; if anything, it brings this one experience to a close, a natural conclusion to this particular chapter in your life, and while the experience is as beautiful as you make it, there's something about completing it that's beautiful, too.
Happiness isn't something we're supposed to have on a permanent basis; it's something we have for a while, and then whatever brings it to us ends. Either we can embrace that fact and enjoy the knowledge that we had that happiness and seek out more of that feeling for ourselves, or we can decide that it's not worth it in the end if we can't have it forever. The latter is a valid way to feel, I suppose, but it isn't any way to live.
So we keep seeking happiness where we can, and when we can't, the most we can ask is to not suffer. This place may be temporary, and there's uncertainty in it, but why shouldn't you seek out whatever happiness you can from it? And if you can't, you should find a way to take pleasure in the knowledge that you're no longer suffering - that things are right for you in a way that they haven't been for a long time.
Thinking that you're selfish for not wanting to suffer anymore...does anyone really have the right to decide that?
[Kaneki is quiet on his end for a little while as he takes the time to process everything Tsukiyama has said. Even if you won't remember the experiences you have had here if you leave...it wouldn't make it any less worth it, would it?
And somehow, it feels as if the conversation has become a bit more personal than he'd expected, but it's hard not to reflect when his feelings about this place that he's been trying to work out for the past few weeks have been practically laid out before him like that.]
You're right. That is what I want. I just want things to be like the way they were before. When I could just go to school and not have to worry about the things I have to back home.
I thought the world was dangerous before, but I realize now that I was lucky. My life wasn't perfect, but it didn't need to be. And getting to come here...is probably lucky, too.
[...This...looks like it's heading into some incredibly emotional territory, and for a moment Tsukiyama pauses; he's always been bad with things like this, choosing instead to avoid emotionally-charged topics discussions where feelings will become heavily involved, and while he doesn't flat-out panic he can tell that he's getting weirdly anxious about this whole thing because holy shit, he should not be trusted with things like this.
He remembers that depressed state he had left Kaneki in back home, where he's safe but not all right, and he also vaguely remembers the feeling that he should do something about it; he'd never really figured out what, and this is more of the same, though the goal is different - it isn't "try to make Kaneki stop being depressed all the time", it's "don't utterly fuck this up, or he won't talk to you again and all of this will have been for nothing" - and while that doesn't exactly sound right, for now it's all that he has to go off of, and for a while he just sort of sits there in a state of SHIT SHIT SHIT.]
There are some things that are like that. Sometimes you go through something, or you gain some sort of knowledge or insight that you hadn't had before - either way, you become very aware that a world existed where you didn't have that experience, and it's a completely different world to the one you're in now, and for better or worse there's no going back to it.
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I have my own thoughts on the matter, of course, but I'd like to hear yours.
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You know someone is causing the manmade ones, but you said that people get gifts on Christmas. But nobody actually knows who they're coming from, right?
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I'm not entirely sure how a person could orchestrate that, but maybe one of the gods could.
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Either way, it's a good question, since the gods in question are still allowing things like that to happen in the first place.
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Why should these gods have any interest in protecting us? If we die, we'll just come back.
If I were feeling really pessimistic, I'd think that perhaps we're just here for their entertainment...but this is a lot of effort to go through just to get some new playthings, and there's no sense in rendering us uninteresting by making all of us human. So I genuinely don't think that's it; at the same time, they don't have any particular incentive to care about us, either.
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But that doesn't matter right now, and this is still over text. It's fine.
He still has to take a moment to think about that, though. It's...not a pleasant thought, to be sure.]
...even if that's true, there has to be more to it than that. Putting it that way sounds like they might be making these things happen just to see how we'll react or letting them happen if they aren't causing them outright, and if we get ourselves killed it doesn't matter because we can't die anyway.
And why would they go to the trouble of giving us gifts or things from home, then? Just to make us happier here so we won't want to leave?
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[...Tsukiyama, you might want to elaborate so that doesn't sound completely bugfuck insane.]
That's what this world is based around, isn't it? Some sort of game? Maybe these are the trials we're being put through because the plot necessitates it.
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I never played Pokemon, but I don't remember hearing about the games being...that intense, do you?
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[HE'S KIDDING. probably.]
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...maybe? Not to mention...I'm pretty sure the character you play as is like, ten, right? Or, pretty young anyway...
[Who is going to put a ten year-old through a trial by fire, honestly.]
But, say it is a game. I've talked to people who have been here for years. Is there even any way to win?
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[...the most he knew back in Tokyo is that Pikachu is everywhere and Jigglypuffs are one of the many pink things running around, and so he just sort of assumes that everything pink is a Jigglypuff until proven otherwise.]
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[...]
If the idea is to try to catch everything, while...staying as alive as possible in the process, that means everything, right? Like, the gods too.
And if that's the case, I don't think you would be able to win.
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[It's...a valid question, really.]
It's better for you if you don't, isn't it?
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But there have to be some people here who do, and would try to do whatever they could to win.
[Even if that means...catching all the gods, apparently.]
So...I don't know why these gods would bring people here who wouldn't be so likely to even try to win if that meant they had to go back after they did.
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Banjou-san and I have talked about this before, a little. Naki-san and I were the first to be brought here; Banjou-san and I don't understand why people like us would be brought here first, instead of you or Hinami-chan. There's also the fact that Team Rocket seems to attract its share of dubious morality, but for some reason I was exempted from it.
I'm not sure what answers there are for things like that, just as I don't know if there's an answer for what you're asking.
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[He considers stopping there, but something compels him to keep going, after a moment.]
...to tell you the truth, It doesn't really matter to me. I don't know how I got here, or why I'm here, but...that doesn't make me want to go back home.
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[He pauses for a moment; this is...awkward, but.]
I'm not going to encourage you to change your mind, amore. If we get sent back, then we do, and there's nothing to be done about it, but it's understandable for you to not pursue it.
If this is what you want, then it's what I want for you.
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Thank you, Tsukiyama-san.
[He types something else after that, erases it, and then types it again.]
But even after everything...it feels selfish for me to want that. Especially when I could just go back at any time. I could be here for years, or I could go back tomorrow.
[Go back to being taken away by Aogiri Tree, and...then what? Back to everything the way it was. Worse.]
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What you want, and what you like about this place, is a lack of suffering. It's a very basic desire, and it's actually the core of epicureanism - the path to happiness can be found in a lack of suffering, and the ability to seek pleasure in fleeting things simply because they're fleeting to begin with.
All things in life are temporary, Kaneki-kun, including and especially life itself. Why should anything we seek be permanent? Even if you're sent home sooner than you would like, that doesn't devalue the experience that you had here; if anything, it brings this one experience to a close, a natural conclusion to this particular chapter in your life, and while the experience is as beautiful as you make it, there's something about completing it that's beautiful, too.
Happiness isn't something we're supposed to have on a permanent basis; it's something we have for a while, and then whatever brings it to us ends. Either we can embrace that fact and enjoy the knowledge that we had that happiness and seek out more of that feeling for ourselves, or we can decide that it's not worth it in the end if we can't have it forever. The latter is a valid way to feel, I suppose, but it isn't any way to live.
So we keep seeking happiness where we can, and when we can't, the most we can ask is to not suffer. This place may be temporary, and there's uncertainty in it, but why shouldn't you seek out whatever happiness you can from it? And if you can't, you should find a way to take pleasure in the knowledge that you're no longer suffering - that things are right for you in a way that they haven't been for a long time.
Thinking that you're selfish for not wanting to suffer anymore...does anyone really have the right to decide that?
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And somehow, it feels as if the conversation has become a bit more personal than he'd expected, but it's hard not to reflect when his feelings about this place that he's been trying to work out for the past few weeks have been practically laid out before him like that.]
You're right. That is what I want. I just want things to be like the way they were before. When I could just go to school and not have to worry about the things I have to back home.
I thought the world was dangerous before, but I realize now that I was lucky. My life wasn't perfect, but it didn't need to be. And getting to come here...is probably lucky, too.
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He remembers that depressed state he had left Kaneki in back home, where he's safe but not all right, and he also vaguely remembers the feeling that he should do something about it; he'd never really figured out what, and this is more of the same, though the goal is different - it isn't "try to make Kaneki stop being depressed all the time", it's "don't utterly fuck this up, or he won't talk to you again and all of this will have been for nothing" - and while that doesn't exactly sound right, for now it's all that he has to go off of, and for a while he just sort of sits there in a state of SHIT SHIT SHIT.]
There are some things that are like that. Sometimes you go through something, or you gain some sort of knowledge or insight that you hadn't had before - either way, you become very aware that a world existed where you didn't have that experience, and it's a completely different world to the one you're in now, and for better or worse there's no going back to it.
Are you going to be all right?
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