Traitor

Tokyo Ghoul RP (Open)

18th Ward

Elizabeth

Elizabeth made her way across a small overpass in the pale light of an early morning. The people she saw on either side of the street were the usual mix of early risers and people forced to get up this early for their job, with a strong majority of the latter. Tired eyes, wide yawns and desperate fighting of the urge to go back to sleep surrounded her. She hardly stood out among those on their way to whatever occupation, wearing a set of unusually clean and new-looking black casual attire. The homeless girl kept a full set of perfectly non-homeless looking clothes for those infrequent but important occasions like today. She preferred early mornings for this kind of business too, because very few ghouls were out and about this early in the morning, and even the humans were few and far between. It was her favorite environment to hunt.

"The Rat" was not the passionate hunter type of ghoul. She didn't enjoy stalking her prey, playing with it, torturing it, dragging out the inevitable. But she wasn't of the morally hypocritcal kind either. She was a survivor. She went out to hunt when she needed to, got the job done in a timely fashion, made sure not to leave a giant mess behind. She sometimes bought human flesh, but that didn't come cheap, and she didn't feel like stealing from the few suppliers who put their life on the line just so others didn't have to.

It didn't take long for Liz to find a suitable target. She spotted a suspiciously attentive teenager from the overpass and began trailing the boy, wondering what kind of business drove a teen out on the streets at this ungodly hour. Soon her intuition was proven correct, when the kid bumped into a tired looking man in black-yellow workgear. Both mumbled a half-assed apology and the boys pace subtly picked up, carrying him into the next back alley. "Rats eating rats..." Liz thought to herself as she followed the little thief, finding him seconds later as he audibly sighed - tossing a wallet aside and shoving whatever amount he just looted into his pocket. The sight of an unfamiliar, hooded figure with a rat-mask didn't faze him, it caused confused anger instead.

"The hell are you looking at. Get lost or give me your money. Actually...give me your money, then get lost." He produced a switchblade from somewhere and started whirling it around in what was supposed to be a threatening manner. "So full of confidence and anger~". Liz never liked the thug type of street rat. Their bite never matched their obnoxious bark. Wordlessly she approached the little thief, faster than he could hope to anticipate. She snatched the knife out of his fingers before he could react and hit his nose with her other, free palm. An attack as simple as it gets, but more than enough to knock a normal humans lights out - and this kid had no hopes of reacting in time. She didn't stop her motion to check whether he was still conscious, but grabbed his head and shoved it right into the next wall at ghoul speed, knocking her victim out forever and getting him out of sight for possible pedestrians looking into the little alley.

A few hours later, Elizabeth returned to the 17th ward. An ominous red-brown puddle was the only proof left in that alley. She reached the rat's nest with a backpack full of decidedly morbid 'snacks' for her family. She was still a survivor, practical at heart. One third of a human body sufficed to feed the swarm of rats for roughly two days, after all.

Tokyo Ghoul RP (Open)

Friendly reminder how good the soundtrack was, for all those who forgot about it.

Tokyo Ghoul RP (Open)

17th ward

Elizabeth

Elizabeth was on her way back to the rat's nest when she heard the telltale sound of a certain street-race that would soon go horribly wrong, but in an entirely different ward. She saw the cars passing a few streets away, for the fraction of a second. Nothing she concerned herself with, the girl never learned driving to begin with. As the sound of tuned-up car engines slowly faded into the night, she adjusted her shoulder bag and strolled onward, down the nightly streets of the 17th. At this time of the night, hardly anyone was still out. The 17th ward didn't see too much action on a daily basis, despite sitting in between the Hydra's and Yatagarasu's turf. No doubt the strategical and systematic leadership of the former played an important part in that.

Liz eventually arrived at her homely street and took a few moments to look at the majestic palace she called her home. It sat there silently, lightlessly, peacefully. A state she appreciated highly. She took a few deep breaths of night air, subconsciously probing whether any ghouls crossed these streets lately, but there was nothing. A feeling of unease overcame her. A hunch, not of imminent danger, but still making her uncomfortable out in the open. The rat hiding in her hood grew restless, so she swiftly made her way over the low fence and around the house, in through the back door.

Once inside, the feeling of unease ceased immediately. The warmth of the day was still present, purging her of the nightly cold. She felt the gaze of several pairs of black, beady eyes on her. "I'm home~" she said into the almost perfect darkness. A street lamp shone into one of the few unbarred windows somewhere, bathing the house's interior into a ghastly light that was just barely enough even for a ghoul to see. Liz took a moment to take in the mood of the house, the emotional state her family was in, and quickly came to the conclusion that everything was in order - she was alone with them. Nothing had disturbed the rats lately. That was all it took for the girl to feel safe.

She made her way through the almost pitch black house, kicking her boots off her feet on the way. Making her way upstairs, she coiled out of her bags strap and tossed it in the middle of what she considered 'her room' on her way in. A small swarm of rodents followed in her wake, staring at her and the bag expectantly, but they kept a respectful distance. It took the ghoul a few minutes to peel out of her street-wear without tearing it up, and the rats waited patiently. One of them settled down on her shoulder, another in her lap after she sat down next to a shoddy gas cooker, lighting a candle.

The house actually -had- electricity, through a shady, not-quite-legal arrangement she had made with the janitor of one of the neighbouring buildings, but she prefered to keep that down as much as possible so the people paying for it wouldn't notice. So shitty gas-cooker and candles, it was.

Elizabeth went through the slow process of making a pot full of junk-food level soup. It had all the nice things she brought with her - instant noodles, dried vegetables and several types of instant soup powder. Had a human tried to eat that, it probably would have caused a ghoul-normal food kind of reaction. You can't expect much from a cook without functioning taste buds. But it didn't smell too bad, and her target audience never complained. Liz filled a few bowls with the toxic waste and arranged them across the room. Her 'family' virtually lunged at the bowls and devoured it in mere minutes before slowly spreading out and repopulating the rest of the house again. Two of them stayed with the girl, enjoying the luxury of getting fed from a seperate bowl. Liz settled for joyfully inhaling the nice smell of the soup, a strange but consistent passion of hers.

Sometimes she actually ate some of the rat food she produced, too. It gave her a sense of belonging despite the disgusting taste, the closest thing she had to 'normality'. But not tonight. She felt too much actual hunger, tonight.

Tokyo Ghoul RP (Open)

Gonna squeeze in my night-time post before the AM/PM-flip...I hope. Been a rough day yesterday, sorry for being so slow ,_,

Tokyo Ghoul RP (Open)

@AbigailTenshi Hum...I might take you up on that offer. The question is whether a C-rank ghoul would be worth investigating, but it'd give my character a reason to move closer to where the rest is situated.

Tokyo Ghoul RP (Open)

I vote yes for fireworks \o/

Tokyo Ghoul RP (Open)

Well various ghouls travel around the Wards, mine included so there is going to be some more people to interact with but also no one is restricted to a single ward. The main idea of the "Ward of Operation" is so we know the place your ghoul would likely spend most of their time.

@Kurisa

On that note, I have a lore-related question. One I can't really remember from having watched the anime and read most of the manga quite a while back.
Is there any kind of "border control" in between wards? Anything to physically separate them from one another? Or is changing from one ward to another like crossing a street? I don't think either version really specified, and if they did I don't recall it at all. I do have sufficiently planned out crossing borders with either of these versions, but I'd still like to have that clarified to avoid awkwardness.

Tokyo Ghoul RP (Open)

Alright.

Posted my first IC, adjusted a bit on my character beforehand, assigned a ward, and added a description of the place Liz is running. I figured it can't hurt to make it an official place in case anyone ever feels the need to take advantage of if.

As for the topic of time-blocks, post barrage and so forth...
I actually think

Also I honestly believe it was just the hype of posting that lead to so many posts right off the bat, I think people were itching to get stuck into this...but that will calm down.

Pretty nicely explains what is happening right now. I'd expect things to calm down, specifically when people start interacting. Writing long-ass posts to establish the character is not unheard of, and once you're actively interacting with others, that kind of length is just not realistic, so things will happen on a smaller size. That's just how it is. While I can absolutely feel NuttsnBolts (I woke up to 17 posts out of nowhere, after all) frustration with the current situation, I think it's temporary and shouldn't be overestimated. That's not meant as a criticism for NuttsnBolts though, if they feel uncomfortable with the situation it's their right to have an opinion and act accordingly, I'm just saying that -I- would personally wait and see.
Time blocks too will become less of a problem, I'd wager. Though to be brutally honest, I wouldn't really say that's a huge problem at any rate. Interaction doesn't have to be synchronized if the people are miles apart, does it? I mean it'd make sense to synchronize times for people in the same ward, to avoid overly awkward contradictions...but if someone somewhere -entirely- else RPs about a night-time event, then I don't see why it can't be day on the other end of the map. Those events don't necessarily have to happen at the exact same time, least not in my opinion. "Snap together" the timelines when people move towards interaction, done. Or maybe I'm completely misunderstanding the whole problem...which is possible.
If a solution was to be found, I'd vote for the "bouncing around half days" version. But that's based on my view that synch doesn't matter -that- much, so take it with a grain of salt.

As for the whole skype deal...don't take it personally, I'm sure you're all fine people and all, but I'm a bit antisocial when it comes to that. I prefer my skype "uncluttered", and only have like 10 or so close friends in there. If this here thing lives long enough to make skype-based collab-ing relevant for me, I'll probably give in at some point.

Tokyo Ghoul RP (Open)

Ward 5

Elizabeth

It was a sunny and enjoyable morning in the 5th ward, and if one was to have a moment of blissful ignorance, everything seemed thoroughly peaceful. Elizabeth had passed over here from the 17th as part of her morning routine for weeks now. It was a bit of a ritual to her, at this point. She would get up early in the morning, get herself something resembling a drink and wander over to a small shrine in the 5th to watch the sun rise. Or rather, the remnants of a shrine, as it lost its keepers before her time here, and since then slowly sank into the overgrowing maw of oblivion. It was an odd sight - a ghoul in worn-out, oversized rags sitting in a tiny, forgotten and overgrown temple, admiring something that trivial while sipping coke.

There was not much "normal" about Liz - for instance, she was probably the only ghoul in the world who didn't like the taste of coffee. It didn't taste like -dirt- to her, but the taste still wasn't to her liking, so she actually preferred the murky-rainwater-flavor of just about anything else.

The girl didn't really have her day planned out, ever. She would go and steal or buy some food at some point of the day - after all, she had a 'family' to feed - but other than that, she had no obligations. She was alone in the rat's nest currently, and the area had been rather quiet over the last few days. She'd have to hunt soon, but that had no hurry. After sitting on a stone bench and enjoying the relative isolation from the usual traffic noise for the better half of an hour, Liz stood up and stretched her arms. She threw her empty cup at an overflowing trashcan, where it simply bounced off and tumbled to the ground. "We should probably clean this place up someday. Might score us some positive karma." she said to no one in particular. But the attentive observer would notice a living bulge in her clothing move from the girl's stomach area into one of the oversized arms of her jacket and poke a whiskered snout out of its sleeve. "You heard me. I said 'we'." The snout disappeared and the living bulge wandered back to her torso to disappear there. She made a hybrid sigh-grunt noise and turned her back on the place, getting back down the small stone stairs, through a forgotten back alley, back onto the street.

To her great surprise, somebody saw her climbing over the waist-high barrier fencing off the temple area. And that someone bothered approaching her. What an impractical thing to happen. Two unfamiliar faces approached her. A tall man in what seemed to be a business suit, with a three-day stubble and warm, brown eyes. He was flanked by a less happy looking woman, who was equally overdressed. As they were closing in, it dawned on Liz that she seemed pretty annoyed, probably embarassed over being dragged into a conversation with some homeless girl, judging from her fiery gaze at the stubble face.

"I'm sorry miss, but I couldn't help noticing that you climbed over the fencing here. There is probably a good reason for the barrier being here, may I ask what you were doing back there?" The man's voice was friendly overall, as was his expression. He didn't come across as mad, rather interested and law-abiding to her. The woman, not so much. She glared back and forth between the two people in front of her and looked like she'd start giving a sermon every moment, to either her partner or Elizabeth, maybe both. So Liz hurried her answer out.

"I...yeah, I'm sorry that's true. The area behind here is a bit 'unsafe', the old temple isn't in the best shape and there's roots and stuff everywhere." She assumed the two weren't from this area, seeing how the man didn't seem to be aware of what was back there. "I know it's not exactly accessible, but from up there you get a real nice look at the sunrise and... I was gonna clean up the place a bit. You know, paying my respects and all. That's not a bad thing, is it?"

The friendly expression of the man turned into a genuine smile. "A temple, huh? I didn't know we had one around here."

"Not a lot of people do, evidently, it's in a pretty awful state." She added quickly, not giving the woman much time to throw in angry comments. But she pried her way in anyway.

"How about if we check that, hm? See what's going on for ourselves?" Her point was directed at the man, but it carried several messages for Liz too. Obviously the woman didn't enjoy their little talk as much as the man did. And obviously, she didn't believe much of it, either.

"Yeah, why not. I've seen a temple in a long time. Have a nice day, miss." He didn't share her suspicions, evidently.

While the fiery woman was putting together an upset answer, Elizabeth smiled her brightest and replied "And you too. Be careful with the stairs, some of those are a bit brittle. Your ankles will be grateful if you stick to the left side." She implied a bow and wandered away from the two before the woman could put handcuffs on her for ignoring certain furious implications.

"We can't... you let her go? We don't even know what she did up there! Have you seen how happy she was? Don't tell me that's normal for a hob-", Liz could hear her wind up like a harpy.

"Reiji, calm down. Not being depressed is not a crime and there's not exactly a giant 'Off Limits' sign here either..." She heard him laugh the woman's anger off, then they were out of eavesdropping range.

The cogs in her head were spinning really fast. Business suits, out on the street, speaking up to homeless people and investigating in back alleys? Overdressed for a cop, but doing cops work? Teams of two? She didn't see briefcases on either of them, but everything else -did- point in a very specific direction. But except for her heart beating a tad bit faster, Liz was quite able to handle herself in situations like that. All they'd find up there was overgrowth, the old temple and a lot of trash, so really, she had nothing to be afraid of. Still, it happened dangerously close to her 'nest', and she'd hate having to resettle. At any rate, she made a mental note not to hunt in the 5th for a week or two, before returning to her schedule. Which involved wandering semi-aimlessly.

Tokyo Ghoul RP (Open)

Seventeen? Seventeen?! I can't even get some hours of sleep without you maniacs completely blowing up the IC? Asdfghgafddf... may the rats eat your eyes.