Rewatching Banana Fish And Realising That When Ash Goes Back To Cape Cod He Has To Deal With The Memories

rewatching banana fish and realising that when Ash goes back to Cape Cod he has to deal with the memories of his dead older brother, who essentially raised him, on top of everything else. I wonder if he went into griff’s room when everyone else was gone or if he couldn’t bring himself to do it and stood at the threshold before turning and shutting the door. I wonder if he looked at the empty house and saw griff’s silhouette in the kitchen, heard his steps on the stairs. It’s not talked about enough, but Ash was grieving. He probably couldn’t sleep under the same roof he used to share with his brother, he was probably laying awake wishing he’d gotten to say goodbye properly. Of course he wouldn’t show how badly the grief was getting to him, instead he wakes up at the crack of dawn and finds a distraction in the sound of ringing gunshots and breaking glass bottles, and he misses and he misses and he shouldn’t be because he doesn’t have that luxury. He doesn’t have the luxury of grief.

i really have to do acid before i die but will i ever be mentally healthy enough to do it responsibly and have a positive experience ? honestly no

“you’re so sensitive” i was born with a poet’s soul. bitch

Looking through my Pinterest boards like Narcissus looking at his reflection

I just eat it up when characters are written with symbolism like they’re a horrible self-destructive mess and yes, it’s like their hands leave scorch marks on everything they touch and oh they can only be admired from afar where it’s safe at a distance but you will be dragged into their self destruction and burn along with them if you let them too close.

Love it when writers do that.

ash, arthur, and yut lung, or “I hate you because you’re just like me but someone loves you”

cw: canon-typical sexual abuse (including CSA) and violence

I feel like a lot of Arthur’s hatred of ash stems from jealousy over Ash’s relationship with papa dino, and given he has every reason to know the nature of that relationship that makes it so much more fucked up than just being jealous that he can’t be the king of new york

Arthur knows exactly what golzine did to ash. when he captures Eiji to hand him over to golzine, he tells Eiji he’s going to be used in the same way ash was. and yet he’s jealous of ash. he’s jealous because ash was groomed and he wasn’t. he’s jealous because ash is being given the whole world at the cost of his dignity, of his autonomy. and he knows that. he tells ash “I know you never wanted it that way.” but he still wishes he could trade places with ash.

it’s never specified whether Arthur was one of golzine’s boys but I honestly believe he was. partly because the blond hair and blue eyes mean he fits golzine’s profile of a “valuable product” and partly because I honestly think it makes him more sympathetic and more of an interesting character. yes ash was victimized like him but ash was such a beloved victim. ash got tailored clothes and steak dinners. he was an object, but he was a *special* object, and to a boy who’s been broken down until he can only see himself as an object that seems leagues better.

Arthur and ash both got pulled off the streets and given power. they were both nothing before papa dino. arthur hated ash because he was the favorite, and because he was given so much more despite resenting that gift.

yut lung, I think, is already much more sympathetic than Arthur, in large part because he’s jealous of the love from someone who treats ash well and not the love from his abuser. he’s also just… very clearly a severely abused child lashing out and I think that makes him sympathetic, even to people like Blanca and Sing who know he’s up to no good and are actively trying to stop him by the end.

yut lung’s brothers not only killed his mother, but made him watch as they brutalized her when he was only six. his brothers continue to abuse him physically and emotionally, and may have even been molesting him based on hua lung's comments towards him and his reaction to being given to golzine as a “gift”. and obviously that in and of itself is disgusting and dehumanizing and abusive, that his own family would sell him like that… almost like how ash’s father encouraged ash to continue allowing his coach to abuse him in exchange for payment.

i almost want to say yut lung is ash if ash let his anger consume him, but that would imply ash DOESN’T let his anger consume him? like it seems different to watch yut lung murder his entire family as opposed to ash murdering the people involved in the banana fish conspiracy, but they’re both killing corrupt businessmen and politicians. they’re both killing the people who made their childhoods a living hell.

except ash is LOVED. no matter how many people ash kills, no matter how much blood is on his hands, no matter how disgusting his past is, eiji loves him. and yut lung hates them both for it because no one loves him. because he, and people like him, are supposed to be unlovable. if no one loves him, no one should love ash either, because he and ash are the same.

I think Arthur hates ash because he thinks he deserves the love ash gets. I think yut lung hates ash because he thinks he and ash don’t deserve love, and it’s not fair that ash can be loved if he can’t.