[Esper] Amano Imoko

FULL NAME: Amano Imoko [ 天野 芋子 ]
OTHER ALIAS: N/a.
CURRENT AGE: 15.
GENDER: Female.
OCCUPATION: Student / ?
SCHOOL: Tokiwadai Middle School.
FACTION: N/a.



APPEARANCE: Imoko is a petite girl with large, bright blue eyes on a rather expressionless face. Her glossy blond hair is only ever trimmed to rid them of split ends, and has grown to reach just past her hips in length. She doesn’t seem to bother with make-up or styling her hair, which helps her stay out of trouble with Tokiwadai’s strict dress code. Outside of Tokiwadai, she tends to wear simple, functional clothing— and prefers muted or monochrome colors over bright ones. She often wears a plain black choker, and carries around a small, black messenger bag.
HEIGHT: 156 cm / 5’1”
WEIGHT: 41 kg / 90 lbs
DISTINGUISHING FEATURES:



PERSONALITY:
✦ Quiet
Imoko lacks the exuberance and energy of extroverted people— she is quiet and slightly reserved. She doesn’t tend to express herself when she’s happy or optimistic, unless she were exceedingly so. Despite her low social energy, she tends to move about with a purpose, accomplishing tasks quickly, energetically, and vigorously, and she usually doesn’t have any issues approaching people.

✦ Agreeable
Imoko doesn’t trust others easily, but finds cooperating and helping others more rewarding than going at it on her own. She finds it easier to work together with others and not to step on any toes, but is hesitant with sharing any secrets or information she holds. She believes a little bit of deception is necessary in a relationship.

✦ Conscientious
For lack of a better word, Imoko is a workaholic. Her classmates see her as reliable and hard-working, and she often puts more effort into her work than her peers. She has a level of purposeful planning and persistence that is sure to bring her success in her future, however she doesn’t fare well in situations that rely on split-second decisions. She makes up for this in being extremely cautious and anticipating many possible scenarios, but she can still be easily caught off guard.

✦ Unflappable
Imoko is usually calm and collected, and doesn’t tend to react with strong emotions. She feels poised and clear-thinking even in situations that leave other people incredibly stressed. There are moments where she feels dejected, discouraged, or even self-conscious, however, causing her to take safer options in situations she’s uncertain of.

✦ Adventurous
Imoko likes to think in plain and simple terms, often being described as down-to-earth and practical. However she is surprisingly enthusiastic to try new activities, ideas, and breaking conventions, and goes out of her way to try them. She finds routine boring, and will often find a new route home just because it is different. She likes breaking the rules, especially if she can get away with it.



LIKES:
✦ Horror
✦ Plushies
✦ Sweets
✦ Guitars

DISLIKES:
✦ Her Name
✦ Laziness
✦ Bodies of Water
✦ Most Processed Snacks; Bland Food

STRENGTHS:
✦ Intuition
✦ Sewing
✦ Mathematics
✦ Sense of Fashion

WEAKNESSES:
✦ Snap Decisions; Acting on her feet
✦ Secretive, Inhibited
✦ Swimming
✦ Overworking



HISTORY: Imoko was born to an American naval officer and a Japanese school teacher. Both of which were rather preoccupied with their jobs, her mother spending months out at sea, while her father spent the majority of weekdays at an elementary school. She would spend a lot of her time with her father after school as he graded students and prepared lessons. Shortly after her father taught her how to read and write, Imoko confronted him about her name. He was incredibly evasive with the question, however he eventually slipped her a photograph of him and her mother that was taken on her birthday— one of them at a bar with a mug of some frothy alcoholic beverage between them.

Imoko predictably had a bit of a grudge against her parents, and had started a rebellious phase much earlier than most kids. She started doing things such as drawing on the stalls in her school’s bathroom, going to places she wasn’t allowed to, and skipping homework. Her mother, a fan of tough love, responded by enrolling her in Academy City.

She was expectedly teased as soon as other kids heard her name be called from the class roster, but they quickly lost interest with time and a bit of influence from her. She spent most of her time studying or spending time to herself, but would often find herself getting in trouble when hanging out with her friend group. Imoko otherwise stayed out of trouble, mostly because it was what brought her there in the first place, and tried to make good grades and advance in the power curriculum program.

After reaching a suitable level and meeting other prerequisites for enrolling, Imoko transferred to Tokiwadai and doubled down on maintaining good grades and a clean disciplinary record; unfortunately, she inevitably drifted back to old habits. She started breaking rules, seeing what she could get away with, and eventually gained the inspiration she needed to start a little business to earn some money under the table. She began smuggling items into the dorms or to other students, and received money or favors for her services.

RANK: Student
LEVEL: 4
REDUCED EARTH: Reduced Earth is an ability that manipulates the distance between two or more objects by distorting, stretching, or shrinking the spatial geometry between those objects. This allows techniques such as traveling large distances by reducing the amount of space needed to move, interfering with the aim and movement of others, making small openings more accessible, and creating spaces that are larger or smaller than the container itself. It takes her about 6 seconds to double or halve the distance between two objects, and any changes done to the environment return to normal as soon as they’re outside a static range of 20 meters. She experiences something like resistance to her power after stretching or shrinking a space by a factor of 4, taking twice as long to shrink or expand the area, and she can’t proceed any further after a factor of 6. Imoko requires a direct visual of the space she is affecting as well as the use of a ruler or other measuring device to assist and help focus her ability, often pointing them in the direction her ability is acting.

Her ability has no effect on physical objects themselves, and they retain the same dimensions inside distorted space as outside of it; however certain objects, especially fluids such as air or water, can either fill or be pushed out of distorted space depending on the space available. She often relates her ability to marbles on a rubber sheet— the rubber sheet can be stretched and squished; create dips that can fit many marbles or hills that can't hold marbles very well; but the marbles themselves are generally unaffected. She sometimes notes she hasn't figured out how to fold the rubber sheet yet.

OTHER ABILITIES: Any other talents or non supernatural abilities or equipment used by your character.
Black Messenger Bag: While otherwise small, she likes to increase the interior to hold more than it would ordinarily carry.
Various Measuring Tools: This includes a tape measure, steel ruler, a 2m collapsible carpenter’s rule, and more.


CHARACTER THEME: finding music is suffering

PLAYER'S NAME: Xochitl (and any diminutives)
DISCORD NAME: Xochitl#0648
RATING: R for Restricted (Explicit violence and sexual content. Must be kept offsite.)
FACE CLAIM: Rachel Gardner (Satsuriku no Tenshi)
OTHER CHARACTERS: N/a
MISC. INFORMATION: N/a

A lithe girl stepped down the hall, her hip-length blond hair bouncing with each step, thankful she just made it back in time an hour before curfew. The detour took a lot more time than she expected, but she still got this far without any trouble. The real trial was just down the hall, but that one was fortunately occupied.

The dorm supervisor had a look that could make even her blood freeze, but Imoko has learned to act natural around the supervisor at all times, whether she was covertly breaking the rules or not. Fortunately, her wrath was directed at a pair of students inside their dorm room, her form silhouetted through the open door. So she casually walked past, taking the opportunity to slip past without having to answer any questions~

Lucky~


Down to the end of the hall and to the left, she stopped in front of a dorm room, the number engraved on a gold plaque on the door. Knocking twice prompted a surprised shuffling sound from inside, before a taller black-haired student answered the door— she had already changed into her pyjamas.


“Is everything ok? What took so long?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Imoko waved her hand dismissively, walking inside as the other girl closed the door behind her, “Just stopped by a chocolate shop on the way back after we separated, they had a sale going. Listen, I gotta go before the dorm mistress comes this way, she was on this floor.”

Fishing around her bag for a moment, she pulled out a stack of papers, “Here’s the notes from today’s class, in case she asks why I was here.” She then reached into the collar of her uniform, carefully pulling out a stuffed plastic bag that should have caused a rather noticeable outline on her otherwise slim chest. The girl quickly grabs it from her, all the while gawking at where it had been.

“Just remember I’m not responsible for helping you hide it.”

She turned to leave, but nearly stumbled over her own feet as her classmate spoke again, “Wait, I thought you were flat, but are you actually hiding something massive under there!?”

OK, this seems fairly straightforward.

Overall, no real problems.

One thing (and I know I bring it up often, but it really is pretty key) and it's related to our past experiences on the forum with introverted or unsociable characters, and that's that you should make sure you're able to figure out ways to get them involved. We've had problems in the past with people designing loners and then hitting a stumbling block when they've got no way of logically interacting with the rest of the forum because their character wouldn't be getting involved with other people. That said, from the description as given it seems less like she's the type to be a loner, and more that she's just reserved in expressing herself. And the agreeable and adventurous traits seem like they should counteract that issue. But I just thought I'd bring it up.

Overall the history seems fine. Nothing outrageous. I can't shake the feeling there's been a lot of editing done though, because it feels like there are some details missing and references to things that were maybe cut out? Like what the photograph her father showed her explained re; her name and what exactly her side business is. I'm assuming, judging by the test post and her ability that it's some sort of courier/smuggling operation? I think it might also be useful to go into detail on what sort of trouble she got into in the past. Serious stuff? Or just typical childish mischief?

As for her ability, my impression is that it's a very interesting and versatile one. I'm curious about limitations, such as potency/magnitude. How much can she reduce/expand space? Is there a hard limit? (Say, not being able to expand a space beyond an area of ? x ? meters square?) Or a range (Such as, between ?% reduction and ?% expansion?) I'm not necessarily looking for hard numbers, just a rough idea.

Also, what happens to objects or living beings caught within the field of her ability? Say she decides to expand the space between a person's hand and their shoulder, does the arm extend along with the space? Does that have any effect on the person? Depending on the answer it could get quite gruesome if say, she decided to expand the space in, say a blood vessel...

How complex are the manipualtions she can perform? Could she fold space in on itself and create something like a Klein bottle or on a less drastic scale, alter the direction of that space? (I'm getting the image of someone trying to punch her only to have their fist redirected back at them)

I'll be honest, it's quite hard to wrap my head around as far as the implications go. But these are the immediate thoughts that come to mind. Obviously with this sort of science fiction you have to play it fast and loose with rules, or else she'd be able to pull off some really crazy stuff related to time manipulation even.

It is a cool ability, so I'd be interested in seeing it developed. We just need some more detail.

That was my intention with her personality, where she's unemotional but not necessarily antisocial, but regardless I edited her personality slightly :X
-- Introverted > Quiet; she behaves basically the same, but this implies she's more open to interact with people than if she were just introverted.

I fixed the history to include what I accidentally [REDACTED] > <
Thank you for bringing it up~

I went ahead and added some limits to her ability :0
-- She experiences some resistance if she uses it on an area too much, that way she can't just theoretically shrink the distance between the earth and the sun to a mere 20 meters, or stretch the length of a molecule out to 40 meters :X

-- She can't use it to stretch peeps' arms off, which I tried to note originally >x>;
However, on that note, if she were to stretch the distance between someone's hand and shoulder, it wouldn't do anything to the arm itself, but it would affect how long it would take to raise their hand.

-- She now has to see the area she was affecting, so she can't use it to expand the space in their blood vessels (unless she had some way to see inside the vessel)

-- And she can't bend space around to cause people to punch themselves in the face or create even more confusing geometry (but she can nudge an attack to curve in a certain direction). Being able to stretch and squish space is versatile and confusing enough as it is, I'll leave folding space to if she ever levels up :X

EDIT: bleh, slight edit to the rubber sheet analogy

Not much more to say here. I called in Iva for a second opinion and he is agreed there are no problems.