[OPENish] ~LIFE NEEDS MORE BEACHES & BONFIRES~

[unbreaker]

WHO: Josuke, Kaneki, Hazel, Annie, Hide, Reiner, Usagi, Jolyne, Giorno and possibly Hisoka
WHERE: Cape Canaveral Beach
WHEN: Saturday Night, February 7th
WHAT: BONFIRE! BOOZE! ROASTED MARSHMALLOWS! ...skinny dipping?
WARNINGS: Teenagers. Shenanigans. Probably mentions of nudity. TBA IF THERE'S ANYTHING ELSE!
NOTES: More or less OPEN? I mean, if one of the above characters would have or did invite yours (talk to the muns!) then please come join us! Opener's in prose, but feel free to use whatever works the best!

They'd come from their homes to the military base in Cape Canaveral, and that was where they'd agreed upon meeting one another. The plan from thereon in was simple. (Maybe too simple to start with—Josuke had originally under planned, after all—but thanks to some helpful 'intervention' things were on course and running smoothly.) A hop, skip, and a jump away was the beach, but in order to be sure they were appropriately distanced from military property, those who were able and willing were to visit the garage and borrow vehicles that could be used to usher their small group a little ways down the coastline. And by the time they had all arrived at the designated location—an end of the beach decorated with bits of driftwood and only a very light dappling of footprints—the sky was already beginning to darken. The bands of color that had once streaked the horizon like the layers of a sedimentary rock were now fading to a beautiful blue-grey monochrome; the rippling waves looked less like glimmering silk and more like impenetrable velvet; and the sun was barely a glowing sliver, minutes away from disappearing entirely behind the skyline. It was cool, but not cold, and as the fire was struck, as it reached brightly skyward, flames dancing and crackling, warmth soon began to fan outward. Around the bonfire were blankets and towels for people to sit on. There were snacks of all kinds: marshmallows, chocolate, graham crackers, chips, and hot dogs—and there were skewers with which to stab several of these foods. There was a volleyball, too, pairs of binoculars, someone's media player and headphones, and a small cooler full of drinks on ice: water, some selections of soda, and of course...the alcohol. In short, everything anyone calling themselves a 'teenager' might need to cut loose on a Saturday night.

Comments

[lyingheart]

Annie turns her head toward him as he speaks, listening in turn. Piecing together what he says now with things he's said before. Adding her own experiences and understandings of people, human or otherwise, to round out the sense of what it can all mean. How can they be so bad, then? None of them are. It's the fear, that visceral feeling tied into survival and the selfishness of those who want to win that game coming into play.

Everyone's wrong, to some degree. Everyone's also right. Balancing the two... balancing ideals that conflict with each other, but demand coexistence... it's curious. Just like the silence from ghouls on how it was they'd been forced into the spotlight of human society. Annie can make her own guesses, but if one suspicion she has is right, then there's enough historical bleedover that "ghoul" and "human" have been each other's inspiration just as often as they've been (unknowingly, from the human side) at each other's throats.

So what prompted the shift out into the open? Ghoul populations should reflect any predator population... swelling when prey did, dying off when prey populations dwindled. Humans take time to mature, so it isn't even simple enough to say there could be a world with so many, many ghouls - they'd over predate too quickly. Or was that part of what had happened to drive them into the open?

Does it matter? Ken came from the human side of the equation. Little wonder he doesn't have whatever history is passed on among the ghouls, if much of one is. Sometimes forgetting certain "truths" of the past to recreate them in the present benefits a species. Other times it doesn't.

Annie shifts, leaning back on her hands and glancing over at his prone form. How can they be so bad, then? "Good, bad... someone I once admired said those things were a matter of perspective to him. That you couldn't be wholly one or the other to everyone, at all times. You could be good for one person, or one group, based on the actions you take... or you could be bad for that same person, or that same group. You could be a mixture of the two of them, too... people don't like to see in that gray kind of morality."

She lived it, but she preferred something lighter, anywhere that could pretend to be more stark and vibrant in the colors used to paint the worlds they all came from. It's a whim of sorts that has her looking skyward, at the cold discomfort of the stars and constellations she had taught herself to recognize here. "How can anything be so bad, then?"

[anthropophagite]

"It's hard to tell one side to see the other. I know it's hard, but I also don't think it's impossible." Kaneki remembers Nishio and Kimi "I have seen that it's possible for ghouls and humans to coexist, to the point of being in love. So I think, bit by bit, Ghouls can come to see humans and humans can come to see ghouls."

it'll just take a lot of time, a lot of tears and a lot of pain, he is certain. Also blood. But Kaneki likes to remain positive about it.

"I think I'm in the privileged position of being able to see both worlds, how ugly and how beautiful they are. But I don't think I have to be the only one. And I don't think turning into a half-ghoul is the requirement to do so." though he says it's "privileged", it0's mostly only about this. everything else, Kaneki feels like he is in hell. No one really knows the things he has seen and faced, and that's good - no one should have to.

[lyingheart]

People still end up finding out, over time - if not what he's lived through, then in living through their own experiences. Whatever caused those worlds to collide would either destroy them, or find an equilibrium once everything hit its boiling point.

I have seen that it's possible for ghouls and humans to coexist, to the point of being in love.

"Can ghouls and humans have children?" She asks while staring out at sea, watching the scant moonlight dance across the surface of the dimpled, darkened sea.

[anthropophagite]

Kaneki believes balance is quite possible, as long both worlds respect each other and keep a safe distance from each other, too. Not too close, but not too far. A balance.

kaneki, who was still laying on his back goes silent for a moment. He remembers Itori-san explaining this to him, and so he crosses his fingers to make an X. "If a ghoul and a human mix, chances are, there will be no pregnancy. If the mother is human, then the ghoul child won't get all the nutrients it needs and it'll starve to death while still inside the womb. If the mother is ghoul, her body will mistaken the baby for nutrients and absorb it." Kaneki lowers his hands, looking up at the stars.

"But there is a chance - small slim one - that it might happen. And the child that is born is a hybrid, will be stronger than any other ghoul" the way it happens in nature when a tiger and a lion mate, for example; the liger(or tigon) will be bigger and stronger than its parents.

Kaneki trails off... "The one eyed ghoul... whose kakugan only manifests on one side..."

Oh. OH. Wait- Annie doesn't know what "kakugan" is. Kaneki raises his head "Uhm- I never told you about the ghoul's eyes, did I?"

[lyingheart]

"... No. You haven't." He does have her full attention though, because yet again, it's 'are we navigating a mindfield' time with Ken Kaneki. She wonders how important this is, hoping that it isn't a more important, ah, lapse.

"What's the deal with ghoul's eyes?"

The rest of what he's said is a sadness in a sense. Annie can see it, see the problems in that, though it seems human women might carry the fetus with a higher success rate. They can adapt their diet... ghoul women would need something else fooling their body about a baby.

Not that someone who isn't destined to have kids really thinks on it all that much.

[anthropophagite]

There is a lot about the One eyed Ghoul, or One Eye King, but Kaneki doesn't know enough yet. It's rumors that aren't just rumors, but Kaneki figures it's not something to worry about here, in this world. A lot of the things he worried about are no longer possible for him to, he supposes.

Kaneki sits up, turning to Annie. "it's called the Kakugan" a pause as he reaches for his usually covered eye and takes off the eyepatch. "Just a second, i'm not good at this-" is he ever good at doing ghoul stuff? But he HAS been trying to figure out how to control his eye, so he can manage this.

After blinking once, the left eye suddenly changes, black takes over the white and the iris turns red, smaller. Because he is not hungry and he is actually controlling it, there are no red veins, so at least it doesn't look as creepy as it could. Kaneki touches the skin under the eye. "Ghouls have both, and half-ghouls only have one."

[lyingheart]

They'll need better lighting than they have for Annie to really see this clearly - as it is, she leans in closer, squinting and peering into Ken's face. The change of his sclera is obvious from further back, but his new eye color is less so.

It's definitely striking, but...

"What does it do? Is that eye better at picking up on movement when it's active?"

[anthropophagite]

When Annie comes closer, Kaneki jerks a bit, but otherwise doesn't move. "I- don't think so. It feels pretty normal to me." he looks around for a second - no, it's not like he seems better in the dark, either.

"It changes because of those special cells -the ones that form the kagune- are activated. It's a consequence of that." a pause, s he looks back at Annie "N-not that it means the kagune will come out-" Annie has heard Kaneki's description of the kagune, but she certainly has no idea how it actually looks and Ken doesn't want to show it to her. "We can control the eyes at will."

[lyingheart]

"That's what the eyepatch is about. Because if you aren't expecting something, you probably react with those cells, and it'd be obvious what was happening." It's a gentler way of saying she doesn't think his control at will is full truth, and that she won't call him out further on the subject.

There were enough changes wrought on his body with the introduction of foreign cells. He's more created, less born, but in his way, Ken is a human-skewed hybrid; socialized in one group independent of any real knowledge of the other.

"Have you been eating enough?"

[anthropophagite]

Kaneki can't help but to offer her a suffering smile "Aha... I have been training. it's true the eye reacts whenever I'm hungry or excited." Kaneki blinks once and finally the kakugan is gone. "But the kakugan activating doesn't mean the kagune activates. And ghouls can also activate their kagunes without activating the kakugans" there are so many words starting with K, he knows.

He pauses, looking at Annie, a bit surprised with the question.

No. Why did she have to bring it up?

"i'm not hungry..." that's to say 'I don't need to eat more'.

[lyingheart]

"That's not what I was asking." She sighs, this time actually breaching personal space to prod him in the middle of his chest. She worries, and it's more difficult to hide when people are closer to her, in a world where it doesn't screw her over immediately.

Keeping the list of K-terms straight isn't so hard, once she repeats them back to herself. "You're actually spending time around people - strangers. Are you feeling more comfortable with that?"

[anthropophagite]

Kaneki blinks for a second, before he looks away the next. However, a small smile creeps to his lips. "I... worry a lot. I don't think that is going to change." of course not. he has also become more careful around other, specially after Josuke took a sip of Kaneki's blood coffee.

"Some people know now, too." people he didn't want to tell; that also freaks him out. he can't bare to look at their faces. "But the important ones who do know-" Hide, Annie, Reiner- "-make it a bit easier. And I think that helps."

He looks back at Annie "And they aren't all strangers - I know a lot of people here."

[lyingheart]

In a relatively small group, but it's still more than who Annie knows here - technically. She was familiar by the network with more than she was familiar with in any spoken face to face manner.

"Worrying... has limits. That's all."

For the rest, she makes a noise of acknowledgement in her throat. "It's good to know people. It's all we have to go on... these people we know, for however long it lasts."

[anthropophagite]

Kaneki nods, as he turns back to look at the ocean "It's funny because, before, I had such a hard time speaking to people. Getting to know others. here, I know so many." he chuckles.

"I don't know if it's because it's a better place or not, but it's nice."

[lyingheart]

"It's different," is all she can say in the end. "Better, worse, I don't think those terms apply. This is just different than the places we call home."

Those places don't stop being home... even if sometimes, at least for Annie, it'd be nice if that weren't true.