I wasn't sure whether to submit my practically-an-OC-atp au version of Kaneki or my actual Tokyo Ghoul OC, so I decided to just submit both and let y'all pick! Feel free to draw whoever, no preference!
@tokyoghoulartfight2025
[Mint Legs AU Kaneki Here]
Tokyo Ghoul OC(s):
Name: Naomi Fontana
Kanji: She’s western and white and her parents named her from the hebrew origin meaning "pleasantness". Her name being a japanese given name too is just a coincidence.
Her surname is italian, and it means "spring", as in the water.
While in japan, she spells her name in katakana: フォンタナ・ナオミ (Fontana・Naomi)
Age: 19 (*As of 2011, the beginning year of Tokyo Ghoul. You’re free to age her up or down as required.)
Born: America (State undecided), Oct 24th of 1992
Education: Currently enrolled in Kamii University as a Foreign Exchange Student. Majoring in the Creative Arts.
Gender: Nonbinary / Demigirl
Currently juggling trying to figure out her gender, gender expression, and if she wants to be closeted or out. Currently presents as a GNC cis girl.
She/her pronouns only, and (with the exception of “girl”) all other terms are preferred to be neutral: Person. Mx. Etc.
Being called miss or a woman will cause gender dysphoria, which is an unfortunate reality being closeted. (Or just… living in a binary world.)
Species: Human
Height: 5’1” / 154 cm & 99 lbs / 45 kg (Touka's height, basically)
Appearance: Medium blue hair (equivalent of brown irl) that is wavy, shoulder-length, and parted to the left, partially drapped over her eye. Green eyes. Wears glasses. Round face. Hooked nose. White. Pale skin. Binds and has a flat chest, not caring if the binder shows. Wide hips.
Blood-type: A
Likes: Creativity, animals, dragons, people who are weird and/or unconventional
Favorite Literature: Fantasy, gothlit, fiction
Sexuality: (Non-SAM) Aromantic. Is technically out and open, but few people recognize that, given how unknown the identity is.
Hobbies: Drawing, writing, people-watching, studying and practicing her japanese, especially kanji
Personality: Kind of a stereotypical INFP, tbh. Quiet and shy but determined. Polite, but can stand up for herself when needed. She has a curious nature and she's doing her best to push herself, put herself out there, and make and find her own life.
She’s very unconventional, and while that can cause struggle in society, at the end of the day she wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Negative traits: Anxious and a bit awkward at times. Ignorant, oblivious. Is too in-her-head, and so people often judge or misunderstand her.
She has a fear of being eaten. Why she picked the ghoul capital of the world, she has no idea. Surely if she sticks to the main city and tourist spots she’ll be fine, right??
Background: She’s always dreamed of traveling to Japan, and after graduating high school and becoming an adult, she decided to bite the bullet and go to college there.
She found a cute little coffee shop named Anteiku, and often goes there to relax and study.
She has issues with eating (sensitivities, picky eating) and so often opts to not eat in public. This, she finds, catches the attention of the CCG and she is made to show all her paperwork and then RC-tested to prove herself as human.
Additionally… She does not like coffee.
Because of these two things, in addition to being a foreigner, she has greatly raised the curiosity of the ghouls at Anteiku. They often wonder why she doesn’t eat in public, are floored and/or insulted when she doesn’t like coffee, and are comforted by her verbal disdain for the CCG. And they ask her a lot of questions about America, traveling, learning a foreign language, etc. She’s made a lot of friendly acquaintances, and even a good friend.
As time passes, she does begin to pick up on the oddities of Anteiku and its customers. But being just an average civilian, she doesn’t have the knowledge to connect it to ghouls. And she makes sure not to show it or ask, knowing that probably wouldn’t be wise.
Eventually, her new best friend is outed as a ghoul, and she decides to risk it and trust and accept them. And with that, she’s given a peek behind the curtain and becomes a quiet ghoul ally.
Relationships: Her best friend is my other oc, a native japanese ghoul guy named Ryuuji. (See below.) He’s not a part of Anteiku, although he is a regular.
Naomi ends up becoming good friends with Touka, although it takes some time. (Post-Gourmet Arc, to not interfere with canon.)
Against all odds, she becomes buddies with Nishiki. She's just quiet and unobtrusive enough that he doesn't mind her sticking around, and despite him being an ass there's something about him she likes?
She becomes friends with Kaneki, but their friendship doesn’t really become anything solid beyond acquaintances, given his short amount of time at Anteiku. Despite that, they’re friendly and on good terms when and if they meet in the future.
Hide flirts with her at the start, which immediately puts her off him as a romance-repulsed aro. He quickly realizes this, and apologizes and starts fresh, and from there, to her surprise, they build a strong friendship. Despite how his abrasive his outward appearance and personality seem, she finds that he’s a really nice, down-to-earth, accepting guy. She’s a lot like Kaneki in many ways, and so Hide eases right in to being a good friend to her, meeting her where she is. Eventually, they both separately begin to suspect they know about ghouls and have ghoul friends. There’s a misunderstanding when she finds out he’s CCG and she nearly breaks off their friendship, but eventually he comes clean as a ghoul ally. She retains their friendship, but also refuses to offer him any information - feeling it’s too big of a risk, which he’s forced to accept, and he does, even if it really hurts. (Mostly to avoid not changing TG canon lol.)
DOs: OC or canon interactions.
Feel free to greatly confuse your OCs on whether she is human or ghoul.
If you have a ghoul OC that's willing to show off to a human... she (and I) would love that lmao.
Investigator OCs... you're welcome to harass her thinking she's a ghoul, or alternatively, come to her rescue from other investigators in knowing she's not a ghoul.
Hurt/comfort or whump is fine, but please keep it on the light side, as she is just a human civilian and is rather weak and would not be able to handle much.
DON’TS: Romantic or sexual content, and no shipping her with anyone. (Friendshipping is more than welcome, however!)
(His hair came out rather red in the scan, but its intended to be a red-pink raspberry shade!)
Name: Ryuuji
When he was born, his parents wrote his given name as 流二 meaning "stream" and "second", but the spelling was stolen away from him when the doves killed his family and forced him to take on a new family register. When looking through his options, he resonated with the spelling 竜志 meaning “dragon aspiration”. (Which ended up influencing his kagune when it formed, as you'll see later.) This spelling was too on-the-nose to change to legally (not to mention if it got stolen away from him again) so it’s something that he simply keeps to himself. A "true name", if you will.
Thankfully, “Ryuuji” is a common japanese name and he has plenty of options to choose from.
He no longer likes to include the kanji 二 in his name, after people kept asking him if he has an older brother and their parents had named them sequentially using 一. (They did, and he doesn't like the reminder that his family and brother are dead.)
Currently, his given name is legally written as 隆司, meaning "prosperity, high, noble" and "administer, manage, control".
And his current family register is under the surname Shimizu (清水) which means "spring water", which coincidentally matches Naomi's surname.
Because of all the changes, and not much attachment to the kanji spellings he takes on, he prefers to write his name in hiragana or katakana instead of kanji.
After the dragon war and human-ghoul peace is reached, he finally legally changes his given name to be spelled as 竜志 "dragon aspiration".
Age: 19 (Likewise, feel free to age him up or down as required.)
Born: Tokyo, Japan. Jan 18th of 1992
Education: None, but he’s gotten a few lessons from Yoshimura over the years.
Gender: Male
Species: Ghoul
Kagune type: Chimera — Koukaku & Bikaku.
Inspired by my interpretation of manga!Nutcracker’s chimera kagune looking like a dragon's wings and tail.
Ryuuji’s koukaku looks like the 5 “fingered” skeletal wings of bats and dragons.
It forms as a main "arm", with one spike coming off the "elbow", and then a grouping of three feather-shaped spikes off the inner wing joint.
It’s similar to Hinami’s kagune - white, bone-like, segmented and connected by red connective tissue. Like all kagune, all of it is prehensile, unlike real bone, so it can flex and stretch in sometimes-uncanny ways. (Oh, and the 4 spikes are pink!)
Less experienced investigators and ghouls often mistake his koukaku as a different RC type. He often forms it down under his shirt to avoid ripping holes, so it can look like a rinkaku. And because of the colored spikes, it can visually seem like an ukaku when spread out.
His bikaku, meanwhile, takes the form of a fat dragon’s tail with a spade tip.
He's admittedly not that strong of a ghoul, but the chimera kagune definitely gives him a buff there. (Probably B or A rank?)
Mask: It's a dragon mask with the defining feature being the tall dragon horns sticking out from the top. The mask itself and it's straps are similar to Nishiki's snake mask.
He wears an all-black long coat and pants, so that when spotted at night as a ghoul, he'll have an extremely draconic silhouette as a result.
Size: 5’11” / 180 cm. He’s tall and skinny and underweight. (And yes, he and Naomi have a big height difference.)
Appearance: Darker-skinned japanese. His hair is a raspberry / pink-red, straight and shoulder-length, but tied up in a half-ponytail, often a bit messy with some loose hairs sticking out. Orange eyes. His face and jaw is a bit long and sharp, and he has a wide nose.
Blood-type: B
Likes: Black coffee, dragons
Favorite Literature: N/A
Sexuality: Bisexual (I'm tempted to make him acespec, too, given his dragon connection)
Hobbies: Catching up with the ghoul community and gossip in Anteiku. He would get a kick out of DND but I myself am too uneducated on that to properly list it.
Personality: He's a rather quiet and chill guy, who's a bit of a loner and prefers to contently linger and just exist around people. He'll happily chat when approached, and he has no issue starting a conversation, although he doesn't always feel a reason to. He's a realist and not at all an optimist. He will not lie to spare your feelings — no white lies nor comforting words. Some people find him rude and harsh, others appreciate him for his brutal honesty. (Also. When taking the MBTI test for him, he came out as an ESTP.)
He was "cringey" in his young teens, then looked down on all that in his late teens, and now finally he has an "i'm cringe and free" outlook. The confidence he has now is something that took all his life to work up to.
(Their age difference probably would have been too big in the OG TG and prequels, but in :re and post-canon, Ayato and Ryuuji would get along really well. They'd be happily cringe together and hype each other up.)
He found killing to be easier than he expected. He doesn’t have guilt over killing, but guilt over not feeling guilty for it.
Background: He’s your average ghoul. Lost his parents and older brother while young and had to learn to fend for himself.
Lately he's been stuck in a funk of living life but not feeling like he's truly living. While he's glad things have been safe and quiet, there's a lingering depression in his life. Maybe that's the reason why he chooses to try befriending a human for shits and giggles. He never expected to form an actual connection, nevermind an unconditional friendship.
Also, he works as an independent contractor, doing odd jobs of physical work. Yoshimura set him up years ago by reccommending him to people he knew, and after years of word of mouth, he has enough jobs to provide for a ghoul.
DOs: OC interactions, canon interactions, or with Naomi.
Feel free to play around with and stylize his kagune.
DONTs: No romantic or sexual content, out of preference. No shipping him with Naomi, besides friendship.