Post by Appoline Meian on Oct 24, 2019 14:17:06 GMT -5
The Basics
Name: Appoline Meian
Nicknames: Lin (this is an oddly long story)
Age: 17
Pronouns: She/her
Orientation: Unexplored
Desired Rank/Job: Student
Powers: Enhanced Reflexes - Appoline's power manifests as a near-precognitive set of reflexes, allowing her to react to things instantly as they happen. She can effectively read her surroundings and actions happening nearby much like a well-trained martial artist can read their opponents. Her power is entirely instinctual and can often lead to her overreacting to accidents or over-correcting her own mishaps. Oftentimes bumps, bruises, and pulled muscles/muscle cramps are the downfalls to such an ability.
Play By: Keiko Kitagawa
The Details
Hair Color: Black with a white forelock (piebaldism)
Eye Color: One light brown, one dark blue (heterochromia)
Height: 5' 1"/154cm
Any Piercings? Both ears, single lobe studs
Any Tattoos? N/A
Any Scars? N/A
General Appearance: At first glance, Appoline appears to be a normal Japanese school girl. She’s about on the short side, has long black hair and fair skin, and is slight of build from both heritage and gymnastics training. Her face is soft lines, and her body has very slight curves - she would never seem boyish, but she's not an American standard of "womanly", either. However, due to a rare genetic disorder, she’s not that normal when one looks past the surface. Her upturned eyes are two different colors, and a forelock of white sticks out from her normally dark hair. Aside from those rather odd things, she appears normal and tries diligently not to dispel that illusion.
Having been raised in Japan, Appoline is comfortable with uniforms and the like, preferring to wear long skirts and jackets than jeans and tee shirts. Given that Hammel does not use uniforms however, she generally dresses in a similar style regardless – white or navy blue long pleated skirts, matching vests and jackets, conservative blouses, and tall socks with comfortable dress shoes. If she’s ever asked to dress up, she’ll wear a traditional yukata or kimono; she rarely ever dresses down, however. The only time close is when she performs gymnastics and wears sportswear – however, she views that as a school requirement and doesn’t think of it as her choice. Ergo, it doesn’t bother her.
Wearing her hair long and down is also a common sight, as Appoline doesn't like people knowing she'd pretty much deaf and wants to hide her hearing aids from view. She is also prone to wearing it in styles (or with hats) that hide her forelock, even if she's given up on concealing her heterochromia.
Personality: Anyone who knew Appoline five years go when she arrived at Hammel would have said she was a shy, reserved wallflower; who rarely spoke at all, let alone talked back. She was polite, nervous, and seemed to want nothing more than to fit in and make friends, even if her previous experience being bullied and her introversion made it difficult. Three years ago, that changed drastically; introversion became isolation, shyness gave way to coldness, and all attempts at making friends evaporated. She would usually close off from people and stammer her way out of any situation where they mentioned her unusual colorations; now she seems not to react at all (though she still feels acutely aware of the "defects".)
Now, the elder Meian girl is still quiet and reserved, but her words hold a bite to them that they didn't used to before. She rarely speaks anyway when not addressed by an authority figure, and she pushes away those who would pick on her now with threats labelled as "what ifs". She calculates every statement carefully, and her passive-aggressive behavior has gotten worse as well, devolving almost into outright gaslighting when people won't leave her alone. She hates being compared to the rest of her family, even talking about them - this is exceptionally dificult with her father's attitudes toward training making him one of the more popular trainers on campus. She absolutely refuses to speak to anyone who is trained by her father, and will go out of her way to avoid them at all costs.
Appoline hates being a meta; she used to just wish to be normal, but she'd beginning to hate her parents for "condemning" her to this life. She never asked to have powers, and the more her parents try and support her, the more she distances herself from them and everyone else. She doesn't think she deserves to be happy, either, which tends to spiral her more on bad days. She is especially distant with her father, due to her feeling abandoned when he left on sabbatical. But it's more than that, and it will take a tougher nut that her to crack through and bring back the shy little girl who just wants to belong.
Your Vices
Likes: Sketching and charcoal drawing, gymnastics, kendo, traditional Japanese ceremonies, cream buns, mochi, moon cakes, being left alone
Dislikes: Apples (allergic), chocolate of any kind, noisy people, snoops, gossips, the indiscriminantly flirtatious, her family, Vincent's students, herself
Strengths: Anything involving dexterity or coordination, sketching from life, reports of any kind (she’s an excellent student), manipulating people into leaving her alone
Weaknesses: Cooking, taking the initiative, speaking in front of people, talking about herself/her problems
Family Ties
Father: Vincent Meian
Mother: Dr. Nakia Kenjutsushi
Siblings: Cassiopeia Meian (younger sister)
Spouse/Partner: N/A
Any Other Important People: Hatsuharu Kenjutsushi (uncle)
History
Appoline was born in October of 2002 as the oldest child of Vincent Meian and Nakia Kenjutsushi. For a while, nothing seemed to be the matter with her. However, months later, Appoline's eyes began to change colors (as babies eyes are wont to do), though not in a usual way. Her eyes became heterochromatic - two different colors representing the broken genomes of her DNA. While this was unusual, her parents payed little mind to such things and continued about their lives. They even managed to miss that her hair - which had started coming in black like her father's - also grew a stark white forelock that never pigmented. It was only when their daughter turned two that her parents noticed that something was wrong. Unless she was looking at them directly, Appoline would never respond to anything they said or did. Her mother did a check-up on her, only to realize that her daughter was practically deaf. With her own medical knowledge and bare recollection of her mother, Nakia took Appoline to the hospital where she worked and had some tests run on her. Sure enough, she was diagnosed with Waardenburg Syndrome; a rare genetic disorder that had skipped Nik due to her albinism and remained recessive in her brother. Now having a diagnosis, she reevaluated how she needed to care for her daughter and started over. Cassie was born less than two years later.
Nothing terribly unusual happened while Appoline attended public school, though she was largely ignored by many of her classmates for her unusual appearance. She was a good student who kept quiet and caused no disruptions in class. She took gymnastics and found that she quite enjoyed it, though she secretly enjoyed her father teaching her kendo more.
One day, while practicing on the floor mat, Appoline slipped and fell, the impact knocking her hearing aids from her ears and dazing her. Her teacher ran to her to help, but the girl couldn't hear him. Trying desperately to communicate this and being unable to, she was forced to go to the hospital for a suspected concussion. (Her mother later explained to the school about her hearing problems and no such incident occurred again). Her classmates found out about her hearing problems, however, and many of them had been there as she was trying to speak to the teacher and unable to hear herself. This lead to a rather cruel amount of teasing and bullying from the other students... but like a good girl, Appoline endured. And really, the teasing never got to her that much - she just started ignoring people.
Her powers manifested very clearly in a similar circumstance shortly after she turned 11. Appoline's middle school gymnastics tryouts were in progress and she wanted to make the team in the spring. Thus, she ignored (though still heard) her classmate's taunts and teasing; she would be offbeat because she couldn't hear, balancing with messed up ears, childish things as such. When she was practicing on the balance beam, however, a particularly cruel bully threw a small object at her (a stress-relief ball, she later found out). Appoline's powers kicked into full gear, and she spun to avoid being hit and lost her balance. As she fell (much to her peers' shock), she twisted in the air like a cat and grabbed the beam, flipping herself back onto the device as if nothing had happened. Totally confused by the chain of events and wondering why she was facing a totally different direction, she looked around at her classmates and teachers, seeing only wonder (and not a little fear) in their faces.
Hearing about the incident, she was tested and found (unsuprisingly) to be a meta. Her father had already been concerned after never seeing his daughter bring home friends from school, and had been planning to move the family regardless once the school year finished. This simply established where they were moving to, and in the spring the family transferred from Japan to the United States. Appoline attended for two years, catching up quickly with her classmates despite needing a tutor to fill in her gaps in the English language. Little had changed between her middle school and Hammel; people were people, after all, and though the number of bullies reduced, the intensity had not. She managed, but confidence was still a long way off.
Then, Vincent took a sudden Sabbatical, leaving both the school and Pilot Ridge overnight. Appoline felt abandoned, and learned secondhand what had happened the cause the abrupt departure. Her world crumbled, despite her mother trying her best to keep things normal, and Appoline became depressed, then angry as time went on. She refused to answer letters, started ignoring her father's (temporarily reassigned) students, and thrust herself fully into academic learning. She gave up with her own trainer, as lessons in controlling her involuntary power had been hard before and now felt meaningless; she only attends because she's required to, but doesn't appear to exert herself at all. Even when Vincent returned to Pilot Rige after eight months, her spiral worsened.
The last year and a half have been stilted and uncomfortable for the family. Appoline is certain she's only managed to avoid disciplinary action because her grades aren't being affected and her words are only directed at people who instigate, though she feels that an intervention from the staff is looming. Right now, all she wants to do is graduate and go to college somewhere far, far away.
Player Information
Name: Hey, it's me, ya Kallisti~
Age: Old, according to the newer generations.
Player Pronouns: They/them, neopronouns
How Did You Find Us? I knew this place before it was born.
Other Characters: Wayne Dietrich
