|
|
Character's real name: Katsu Hatsuoki (Surname first; name of address is Hatsuoki)
Codename/Alias: Otohime
Gender: Female
Age: 53
Nationality/Ethnicity: Japanese
Birthplace: Kyoto, Japan
Personality: Hatsuoki is ladylike, elegant and composed at all times. She maintains a serene poise, deferent and submissive as she goes about her affairs with a taciturn, quiet bearing. She speaks little, but when she does it’s with an complex esotericism which may or may not be construed as an insult; she’s very sarcastic and defiant, but in a guarded, evasive way. She says things in such a way that she couldn’t be pulled on them, nor can others be completely sure at to exactly what she means.
Hatsuoki has the wisdom and air of an ancient; even people who don’t know her history feel the irrepressible presence of age and the antiquated about her. She seems to know things others do not, and has a self-awareness only acquirable by those who have seen multiple-centuries of life.
She won’t lower herself to argue. She may disagree, but unless the cause it true to her heart she won’t voice her opinions; she considers it petty. The most she’ll commit herself to is, perhaps, a guarded statement or an obscure sentence.
Away from argumentative matters, she’s a very charming woman, able to make others feel comfortable and relaxed; she’s been specifically trained to achieve such a thing. In her presence people often feel as if they’re the most important, significant individuals in the world - she has a clever way of stroking a person’s ego and she’s always, always polite, observing etiquette even in deadly situations. It’s her way of keeping in control of a situation.
All the above is a careful façade. Inside, Hatsuoki is sinister, Machiavellian, duplicitous and altogether unwholesome. She’s the typical masked psychotic; charming, ladylike, reserved, educated, genteel… macabre, manipulative, remorseless and absolutely, stone-cold capable of doing anything other people would blanch at.
Notes (Hobbies, Phobias, Worries, ect.): Hatsuoki maintains a simple, elegant approach to hobbies and interests; she’s a lover of the performing arts; western ballet, theatre and traditional Japanese performances such as Noh and Kabuki. She also enjoys flower arranging, erring towards tropical plants and flora from her homeland, and the company of other people.
Hatsuoki is hydrophobic. She has an intense, crippling fear of being surrounded by water; not of being wet, or touching water, or seeing it. She’s fine with these things, and can operate on a day-to-day basis without it being as issue. It’s being submerged in water which terrifies her; she’ll takes a shower, not a bath. She’s never been into a public swimming pool either; the idea of being hemmed in by water on all sides is enough to render her immobile and insensible.
Allegiance: Bad
Everyday clothing: Hatsuoki wears a Kimono every day of her life, regardless of company or which country she’s in; more often than not, however, she leaves out the elaborate makeup and adopts a simple hairstyle which nevertheless reflects her culture. Very rarely will anyone see her hair flowing freely unless she’s about to go to bed.
On very odd occasions she’ll wear a western business suit, but this is rare.
Uniform:
Pajamas: Silk nightdresses.
Hair color and style: Black; she wears it in a variety of elaborate or simple Japanese styles. Unlike many modern geiko, Hatsuoki’s hair is natural. When loose, it hangs thick and heavy to her lower-back.
Eye color: Black
Height: 5’6’’
Build: Lean, willowy, graceful limbs.
Scars: None.
Tattoos: None.
Piercings: None.
Description of ability(ies): Hatsuoki has the ability to turn in a gigantic reptilian creature, that is to say, gigantic when compared to a Komodo dragon but small when compared to a two-story building. A good estimation of her size would be the length of an ordinary street-bus, with the body-width of a small car. She has two clawed forelegs and two clawed hindlegs; her appearance is the similar to the traditional Japanese dragon or Wani in Eastern art; green and red in colour, three claws on each foot and black horns protruding from her head. This is gives her enormous endurance, strength and agility, as well as a heightened sense of smell, hearing and sight.
Ancestral Memory: Because of her semi-animal genetics, Hatsuoki's mutation has taken advantage of the congenital memory system some reptiles and other animals are born with. Because she is human, however, the memory is much more detailed and specific; Hatsuoki can search her mind for the memories belonging to her ancestors. In effect, she remembers hundreds of years' life; not her memories, but the collective lives of all the women before her.
Cons (weaknesses) of ability(ies): Hatsuoki doesn’t have wings, she can’t fly. Hatsuoki can’t breath fire in any shape or form. Hatsuoki is not invincible; most of the skills people generally attribute to dragons do not apply to her. This is because she’s not a dragon. She’s a mutant who has access to a large, reptilian form, which is strong but nowhere near omnipotent. Furthermore, she cannot control the size, shape or nature of the reptile she transforms into, nor has she access to any ‘hybrid forms’ of human/ reptile.
Ancestral Memory: Hatsuoki can go back and recall clear memories for approximately four/ five hundred years. Anything longer than that and the memory becomes jaded and foggy, with important details being missed, almost like recollecting a dream. She can also access only female memories.
Fighting style (if any): None in human form.
History of your character: Hatsuoki was born Aiko in the Kamishichi-ken district of Kyoto, Japan. Her mother was a mediocre geiko, or geisha, belonging to the Katsu Okiya, a geiko house which is still in operation today, and her father was her mother’s Danna. Because of their quasi-business nature of their relationship, her parents were never married, nor had they any intentions to.
As most daughters born to the okiya, Aiko was brought up to be a geiko, and her training started as soon as she was able; as a meiko, or apprentice geiko, she was taught traditional Japanese dance, tea ceremony and the use of an instrument called a shamisen, a kind of three-stringed guitar.
Aiko’s mutant ability emerged when she was fifteen; she found she was able to change her body into what she believed at the time to be a Wani, or Japanese dragon. She considered this a blessing from the Goddess Otohime, who transformed into a Wani after the birth of her son, and so Aiko took to naming her dragon-form after her, though she kept this highly secret. Geiko were an extremely superstitious people; she couldn’t afford to associate herself with evil or bad spirits, so she made sure Otohime never emerged in a place where she might be found out.
When Aiko passed her long training period, she was give n the geiko name of Hatsuoki, which means ‘the first born/ the centre of the ocean’, because she was her mother’s first and only child, the ocean reference because as a meiko she’d constantly spoken about Otohime, the Goddess, who’s father was the God of the sea. It was considered a prosperous name and would become, forever more, the one by which she was referred to and the one with which she introduced herself.
As a full geiko Hatsuoki became fully aware of the competition she was under from others; she’d grown into a beautiful young woman, but there were always other, more established or popular geiko, who threatened her success. Using Otohime, she terrorised select women, making them believe they were cursed by evil spirits and therefore reluctant to work; as said before, geiko were very superstitious and believed that a woman with in bad standing with the spirits would bring disaster to their respective okiya.
And so the years went on, with Hatsuoki becoming a sought after woman and successful geiko, partly due to the lack of skilled women around (Otohime was still very much active) and partly because of her own talent, though perhaps the latter was less due to her own skill and more because there were few women brave enough to compete; they didn’t know Otohime was Hatsuoki, the connection was never made, but any woman with any real skill was quickly made aware that she wasn’t welcome in Kamishichi-ken. As time passed, significant, drawn out years, Hatsuoki realised that she was living one life of hundreds. She at first attributed this to confusion, or insanity. After a time, however, she came to realise that these were not delusions but actual memories, and to her this was another gift from the Goddess Otohime. She retired from the district, because the memories from her own life and the lives of her ancestors were so heavily invested in the place; it was hard to tell which were her memories and which belonged to the others.
She left Kyoto and began entertaining privately in other parts of Japan, where she was less well-known; when too many years passed she’d move somewhere else, and so her life went.
She left Japan for good in 1955, a few years after the country was opened to the outside due to the American Occupation, and has since travelled, and lived, in most major cities worldwide, apart from America; she’d grown to resent it for its treatment of her home-county.
Having seen the first half of a century, and still quite youthful, Hatsuoki has decided it’s time to put away her hatred for America and experience the very last part of Earth she’s yet to explore.
Where did you learn about this site?: Google
Other accounts on MRO:
|
