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Rikona Fukuda; My first character. Figured I'd wait a little while to do anything edgy.
Topic Started: Apr 27 2016, 06:34 PM (183 Views)
Erin Everett
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This is my first character. I hope it's up to snuff.

~

Name: Rikona Fukuda
Gender: Female
Age: 17

Class: Reitaku High School, Homeroom 3-C

Clubs/Occupation: At school, Rikona has signed on for Literature Club for love of reading, as well as Judo Club per her parents' wish that she learn basic self-defense. These are similar clubs to those she attended at her previous school, so she already has noticeable experience in both of them. Outside of school, Rikona spends a lot of time at home studying or trying to find time to hang out with school friends, but still manages one or two nights a week working part-time at a local coffee shop as a waitress.

Personality: Not much about Rikona's behavior seems to separate her from other girls her age, on the surface. She works hard and is attentive in class, but has no trouble loosening up around the other girls or having fun talking to a boy every now and then. At her previous school, Rikona had a fairly wide circle of friends and social acquaintances, all of which have been relegated to the status of online IM buddies now. As she begins her new school life during senior year, she proves to be less socially active than she used to be, but not out of reluctance to make friends. Her focus on studying for exams and preparing for college just makes her seem more closed-off than she normally would be.

Outgoing and confident but never pushy or rebellious, Rikona has a tendency to lead rather than follow and a steady, reliable head on her shoulders. Both inside and outside of the Mysterious Ruins, nothing can throw Rikona off-balance for long. She approaches every situation with both the knowledge that it's better to act than it is to dither on what-ifs, and the caution that comes with a well-tuned sense for how much will go wrong if she makes the wrong move in a given situation.

If Rikona is guilty of a prominent failing, it's that she has a way of considering herself more mature than the people around her, sometimes going as far as to muse that some of the adults she meets are more childish than most teenagers. She's somewhat lacking in respect for older generations, and often overestimates her peers if they display any superficial level of maturity or intelligence. She seems to make a blatant exception to this for her own parents: Rikona is one of the few girls of her age who has never been heard speaking ill of her mother or father, even in passing.

History: Born to Shinichi and Tokiwa Fukuda in August of the year 1996, Rikona would have enjoyed a pretty privileged childhood by the standards of the time. Then her father was laid off from his job in the marketing department at a prominent electronics company shortly before the unborn Rikona was carried to term, and her father was forced to place himself heavily in debt before he found another job that fit his skill set. The loans he took forced the family to be fairly frugal for many years. While they lived comfortably enough for Rikona's youth to qualify as "a happy childhood," the effects were felt, and Rikona bore witness to her father and mother's arguments during the more-stressful months when money was tight or unexpected expenses threw off the household budget.

While in many cases this was a recipe for a troubled childhood, perhaps involving a divorce and a tragic dip into the world of true impoverished living, the Fukuda household never had it quite that rough. Shinichi found another job after only a few months, not as well-paying as his previous, but with his wife working a job alongside him, the family stayed afloat. Eventually the bulk of his debt was repaid, and as their daughter grew into a young woman before their eyes, the husband and wife came to feel that all of their hard work was worth it. Along the way, they even gradually taught their daughter to appreciate the hardships they'd been through. In short, Rikona learned the value of a yen and what it took to establish a home-life and family of one's own, giving her a stronger sense of what adulthood must be like earlier than most children truly begin to learn it. This knowledge colored her development and forged her into a diligent student by the time she started high school, though it also led her to regard other teenagers and even some adults as being lax or whiny.

A second lay-off as Rikona neared the end of her second year in high school proved something of a scare for the family. But fortune was on their side this time, as Shinichi had saved for such an occasion and was able to find work in another city within a matter of weeks. His new job was that of a marketing manager for one of Nagashima's nicer companies, a manufacturer that specialized in making components for larger, more lucrative electronics companies. It was a good opportunity, but Shinichi and his wife very nearly turned it down. And they would have, had Rikona not come home from school early with a terrible fever and a throbbing headache that day, overhearing their conversation in the kitchen as she quietly entered the house. She walked in on them just as they were in agreement that they did not want to force their daughter to change schools for senior year. Rikona interrupted, insisting that she could handle it, and did not want them burdening themselves just to keep her happy. She wasn't a child who had to be coddled anymore, she told them, but a woman who could deal with a little hardship if it meant her family would have an easier time.

And so, the Fukuda family made ready to move. There were enough funds in Shinichi's savings account, combined with his wife's, to secure a nice, homey home in uptown Nagashima. Pressed for time as they were, they only managed to secure a spot in one of the city's lower-end public schools for their daughter, which Rikona took in stride. Soon enough, she found herself stepping into a new life in a new city, unfamiliar places and people all around her... but, it was alright. She had her family, and she hadn't lost touch with her friends back home.

Nervous as she was, Rikona found herself excited for the new experiences she might have, and the new friends that were surely waiting for her. Who knows? she thought to herself. Maybe she would even find a boyfriend, if there was time between study sessions for boys. The only limit besides the sky was the number of hours there were in a day.

Appearance: The picture of a high-school girl who has her head on right in just about every category, Rikona achieves a good combination of naturally-pretty and well-made-up that, whether in-uniform or out, she appears almost to be the idealized image of a Japanese teenage girl. Closer inspection reveals that her figure is, in reality, kind of plain. But whether through fashion excellence, clever choice of underwear, or some combination of the two, she always manages to look just a little bit more appealing to the male eyes of the studentry than some would say she strictly deserves to.

The golden tone of Rikona's skin is fairly pronounced, and her eyes, large and distinctly "almond"-shaped (which is to say, shaped like a Japanese person's eyes, which isn't especially almond-y at all compared to anyone else's eyes) are dark-brown, nearly black in color. Her hair is naturally black and straight, but is usually touched up with subtle auburn highlights and slightly curled, giving it a stylish, bouncy look, and worn just long enough to drape her shoulders and the back of her neck. Her use of make-up is subtle, favoring light-pink lipstick and a well-curled eyelashes over pronounced blush or eyeliner. Surprisingly, she keeps her nails short and unpolished. When asked, she freely admits that she used to grow them and paint them, but kept breaking her nails during Judo lessons until she gave up.

Rikona wears her school uniform at all times on most school days, since her home is too far from school for changing out of it before going out to be convenient. On Sundays, though, she lets loose with any number of clothing combinations, usually well-accessorized. Nothing she wears is ever "loud," but it's clear that Rikona has a good eye for fashion and enjoys making herself look good. Almost every outfit she wears includes a bracelet of colorful beads on her left wrist, a farewell gift from one of her school friends given to her just before her move to Nagashima.

Weapon: While Rikona has no experience with any kind of weapon, if she were pressed to choose, she would favor a pole-arm or a staff, or any type of weapon with reach that is good for putting distance between herself and a threat without needing to learn how to aim.
Mask: A golden mask shaped like downturned wings with a bird's beak and tailfeathers at the nose and forehead, respectively. It is fastened to Rikona's face with a thin, golden chain. Image here: http://orig06.deviantart.net/4788/f/2013/247/5/9/ancient_egyptian_horus_mask_by_namingway-d6kxpa0.jpg

Persona:
~Name: Isis
~Arcana: Major Arcana VI - The Lovers
~Drain:
~Weak: Electricity
~Null:
~Reflect:
~Resist: Water
~Skills: Aqua, Magna, Dia

Isis is an Egyptian goddess often associated with wisdom, nature, motherhood, and magic. The Persona that Rikona awakens to takes the form of a black-winged, dark-skinned woman in white, gold-trimmed raiment, the upper half of her face obscured by an elegant golden headdress carved into the shape of a throne.

Wikipedia entry here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isis


Have you read all the stickies?

Yes.
Edited by Erin Everett, Apr 27 2016, 07:34 PM.
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FirebreathFishslap
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I'm the best! I'm the king of me! I'm gonna eat chips out of the garbage!

Hey, welcome to the site!

Your app looks pretty good just from a quick readthrough! However, I'm going to have to suggest that you go back and change some of the character names. Tokiwa is fine, and Rikona is okay (the resource I use says it can be used as a name, but it's definitely one of the more obscure ones if so). Sin'ichi is technically correct as a romanization for 新一, but as a general rule we tend to use Hepburn romanizations for character names (which would instead make it Shinichi); while Shaiwase isn't a word at all in Japanese. It looks like you were trying for "shiawase", which is a word, but not one that's used for names. So maybe go back and adjust those?
Edited by FirebreathFishslap, Apr 27 2016, 06:55 PM.
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Erin Everett
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Thanks for the input! Actually, all of those names were chosen from websites that list Japanese names, but I'll admit I cheated a bit with Shaiwase (it came from a first-names list, not a last-names list). It's my understanding that some first and last names are the same, but trying to research which ones can and can't be used that way is a teensy bit of a pain in the butt.

The name lists I used were these ones.
Girl names: http://www.top-100-baby-names-search.com/japanese-girl-names.html
Boy names: http://www.top-100-baby-names-search.com/really-cool-japanese-names-for-boys.html

And actually, on that girl-name list, Shaiwase is spelled the way I spelled it. The names were picked for their meanings--the first name meaning "intelligence," and the last name being "good luck and happiness." If the name still needs to be changed, I'll figure out another one. But I'll go through and universal-replace Daddy Rikona's name to Shinichi now.
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FirebreathFishslap
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I'm the best! I'm the king of me! I'm gonna eat chips out of the garbage!

Baby name websites can be a bit unreliable with these things, unfortunately. :V Easiest way to check is to run a google search with the name you want to use; if actual people come up and not just people's Facebook OCs/baby name websites, you're probably golden!

The resources I personally use are http://www.japanese-names.org/ and http://www.behindthename.com/names/usage/japanese (which aren't that great either, but they're a good starting point); and then http://nihongo.monash.edu/cgi-bin/wwwjdic?1C, which has a "names only" search and is good for double checking if a name is actually viable.
Edited by FirebreathFishslap, Apr 27 2016, 07:25 PM.
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Erin Everett
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OK, for the sake of keeping it simple I've picked a name from one of those sites you handed me. Rikona's surname is now Fukuda. She is now a very lucky rice field, according to Japanese-names.org. At least I got part of the original meaning in there! :p
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FirebreathFishslap
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I'm the best! I'm the king of me! I'm gonna eat chips out of the garbage!

Alright, everything looks solid to me, then!

Approved.
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Erin Everett
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Thanks for the help getting the names figured out!
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