[OOC] Application to yumemigaoka

[crackedchrysalis]

Player

Name & Pronouns: Kathrine (she/they)
Age: 18+
Contact Details: chocolateisbrainfood

Character Info

Name: Koharu Uehara (Koko Chocho is her stage name)
Age: 16
Suitability: N/A

History:

• Born to Matsuharu and Keiko Uehara. Very wealthy and successful business execs in television and film marketing. Born in Okinawa but moved to Yumemigaoka when Koharu was 14.
  
• Her parents didn't seem to like each other very much and that turned to outright contempt and rivalry where they would use Koharu against each other.
  
• Was a very shy and quiet child when she was little, but realized early on the way to get her parents attention was to be "marketable." It never lasted for long, but she tried a lot of different subjects to gain their attention. Did very well in school, always the top of her class, tried various activities and sports that her parents seemed to care about until they got bored and she dumped them to try something else.
  
• Koharu then started modeling and acting when she was 8 under the stage name Koko Chocho and her parents took more interest then. Her first serious contract was singing a jingle for commercials for a children's doll line, Fluttering Faery Flyers (think Skydancers). She even got to be one of the girls in the second commercial!
  
• She continued with her acting and music career and managed to become a c-rank idol around Okinawa; known and recognizable, but not super famous. More the "I know that girl from X" type and not the "I know her by name" type. She would change her looks and fashion often to try and fit whatever roles and look they might want from her. Didn’t stop her parents from drifting away again.
  
• Moving to Yumemigaoka did disrupt the budding idol career she had a bit because being a local celebrity doesn't work if you move, but her parents insisted on living in Yumemigaoka would be the best for all of them.
  
• It's when she's at her lowest when she's 15 that she's attacked by a Nightmare but she ends up so angry that she fights back against it and Awakens into Dreamer Papilia.
  
• Koharu is not happy to become a Dreamer at first. She's ashamed. Her parents have mocked Dreamers and the entire "circus" around them, as they call it. It's one of the few things her parents seemed to agree on.
  
• So she ignores that she's a Dreamer and avoids using the sandglass. That is...until she's curious enough to try it out. The Dream Sphere is different. It's unusual and bright and she doesn't like it...except she kind of does. And so, she keeps going back and practicing her magic in the Dream Sphere. It's almost like an escape. Not that she had anything to escape!
  
• Strangely though her powers didn’t seem to "settle" completely. Her sandglass doesn't turn into a normal weapon like she's heard about. It turns into a bracelet with a cocoon dangling from it and when the cocoon "hatches" a group of prismatic butterflies comes out to swirl around her, causing a reaction. The butterflies themselves seem to hurt Nightmares so when first entering the Dream Sphere she will release them like a burst attack over and over, allowing them to deal damage on the Nightmare while she ran at it and then dodged. It tires her a lot, but it did have an effect and could eventually take a Nightmare out, but it takes time to wear them down.
  
• She hides being a Dreamer from her parents for six months.
  
• Her parents agree to be present for a birthday dinner Koharu cooks for herself only they devolve into bickering, then shouting and she uses her sandglass to escape to the Dream Sphere.
  
• She returned home to her room eventually, waking up with her parents standing over her bed. They knew exactly what happened when she vanished the way she had. But instead of being upset and disappointed with her for being a Dreamer...they were happy. Ecstatic even.
  
• Their daughter, a Dreamer? It was something they couldn't possibly pass up! Suddenly Koharu was being barraged with attention and compliments and her parents asking her what her Dreamer-self looked like, how they could use that look in the real world, and potential marketing campaigns that would benefit from Dreamer-connections.
  
• She didn't know how to handle this sudden burst of positive attention she was getting, but she soaked it up. She changed her looks yet again to try and emulate her Dreamer-self. She dyed her hair cotton candy blue. She swapped out her normal contacts for colored pink ones. She painted her nails to match. She started wearing butterflies in her hair and on her clothes more often. She would embody Dreamer Papilia whether asleep or awake.
  
• She then joined the Dreamer Union at the instruction of her parents, but she told them she wanted to be a Striker. When they looked at her skills as a Dreamer, they asked if she was sure. She said she was. They asked her to reconsider, and her parents told her she could stay a novice for a little while so she could "test everything out." They wanted to chronicle her journey as a Dreamer and use it for marketing purposes, so her jumping into a "type" too quickly would ruin the buildup and suspense, anyway.
  
• So she has been a novice for a couple months and already settled into her new school, Promised Morning Academy.
  
• She runs into an Experienced Dreamer when fighting a Nightmare who tells her to cut out the way she uses her magic, it was just wasting energy. She didn't understand what they meant. They explained she was turning a shield into a bomb and sure she might have a ridiculous amount of energy reserves, but eventually she was going to hurt herself at the worst moment doing that.
  
• It is then that she learns her magic is more defensive. The butterflies were trying to guard her, but she kept sending them out to attack instead.
  
• So the next time, only one much larger butterfly comes out of the cocoon, and when it lands in Koharu's palm, she is given a huge boost. All those little butterflies concentrated into one. She's stronger, harder to injure, heals faster, and covered in what looks to be shimmering armor. So she takes to punching Nightmares instead of running from them. It's somewhat more effective.

Personality:
Koharu is both a very simple person and a very complicated person at the same time. She is simple in that all her issues stem from the same source but complicated in that she’s twisted herself into a pretzel because of said issues. Koharu is very lonely and desperate for attention and validation, so everything she’s done is to get people (especially her parents) to pay attention to her. Of course, she has learned how to watch and assess people, becoming very intuitive and adaptive for the sake of this. She can change her fashion, her demeanor, and her body language to try and appeal to people she wants attention from. It’s not a quick whiplash type of shift usually, but a more gradual take so that people might assume she’s just “growing up” or “liking new things,” etc. She knows people don’t trust those who shift their opinions and behaviors too quickly. This also means that she doesn’t tend to stick to any one social group or type because she will move from one to another while trying to get that attention-high.

She is also someone who is very anxious and hides that behind a façade of arrogance most of the time. She is constantly afraid of being the center of attention, because it means everyone will be watching if she makes a mistake and then she will deserve people rejecting her because they saw what a failure she is. This leads her to having panic attacks after major performances or when she is extremely stressed (like when she thought she messed up the sauce for a meal she was cooking for her parents). And despite her anxiety, she fears being alone and ignored far more than she fears having a panic attack, so she will strive to throw herself into the center of situations even when she doesn’t belong. She can deal with the consequences later, she tells herself.

Koharu is very talented and hard-working and will completely commit herself to doing whatever she wants to do, but she doesn’t always maintain attention and focus on it, if she perceives that people do not care about it. She spent a year practicing and improving her skills in horseback riding, then ice-skating, but the minute her parents stopped caring about her doing those activities, she dropped them and moved on to something else. Being a performer who models, acts, and sings is the only thing she’s stuck with because it does allow her to seek out her parents’ advice and interest by picking projects they might care about, but she will fall out of interest for those very projects if she’s not getting the attention and validation she seeks from it. One of the reasons she has not gotten higher than a c-rate local celebrity in Okinawa is because those in the entertainment industry see her as flighty as she will do a project very well early on but fade if it goes on too long (meaning her parents will stop caring) and won’t try to keep up the relationships as well as she should. Even though she’s been praised for her singing, acting, dancing, etc., by people in the entertainment industry, she does not trust it because to her, they only want her for their own profit and aren’t praising her. Considering that this is the only her she is showing to them, it’s a very circular and self-defeating perspective to have about it all, but it’s just not enough for her.

Koharu is someone who manipulates others because she does not know a healthy way to make bonds with people. She can’t connect to them in a casual way, has only ever seen people use relationships for business or other selfish reasons, so everything is planned out and each step measured as she takes it. That doesn’t mean she isn’t craving that. She craves finding Her People. The ones who will see her for who she is (even though she has no idea who that person even is herself) and choose her, want to be around her without there being a “catch” to it. Despite her cautious and calculating nature, this leaves her open and vulnerable to being manipulated herself if someone were to give her that attention and recognition she needs so badly. She would give anything to have someone who loves her—not that she knows what love is to recognize it.

Not to say that Koharu isn’t a brat in her own right. Being so very wealthy her entire life has left blandly materialistic. She has been able to afford everything she’s ever wanted, and her parents’ connections have opened every door she’s ever stood in front of or at least give her an opportunity to try herself. She very much believes you can be anything and have anything if you work hard enough and want it badly enough, and thus sees people who flounder in life as failures. Yes, this means she also considers herself a failure because she can’t have what she wants most (her parents’ genuine love and affection), so she projects that onto others around her she also sees as “failing.” Money has little value to her because she has never not had money, but she does value hard work because she’s basically had a job herself since she was eight years old. It’s very dismissive of the societal difficulties and barriers other people may face and thinking they should just Toughen Up and Try Harder to make their way in life.

Other Notes: N/A

Dreamer Info (Remove if not applicable)

Dreamer Title: Dreamer Papilia
Appearance: 5’5”, a curvy body type, her natural hair color is a black, eyes are a lighter brown. She dyes her hair cotton candy blue and wears pink contacts. Without contacts she needs glasses. One her left wrist, she has a bracelet that looks like twisted tree branches that a shimmering kaleidoscopic cocoon hangs from. This is her weapon.
Reference images: One | Two | Three | Bracelet

Archetype: Novice

Power Considerations:
SOARING DREAM ADULATION: (D RANK)
Becoming Dreamer Papilia gives Koharu large butterfly wings and when using this power, she can fly with them. This of course uses up energy and if she wears herself down too much the wings with shatter and disappear.
PRISMATIC DREAM DISSOLUTION: (UNACTIVE)
Koharu focuses energy on her weapon and the cocoon explodes. It releases dozens of butterflies at once, draining her energy, and sending them out to attack instead of defend. They work like mini-explosions, dealing damage to the enemy. She could theoretically create a large bomb butterfly out of this, too, but has not done this and has been warned against it because it would take all of her energy and probably hurt her or put her into a coma.
SHIMMERING DREAM ECLOSION: (UNACTIVE)
The cocoon on Koharu's wrist hatches and a butterfly comes out. Whoever the butterfly touches will be given a boost in physical strength and durability (like having shimmering armor around them) and a temporary Level Up in their magical energy. Koharu can do this a few times during a fight and with more than one teammate, but the more energy she puts into the butterfly, the weaker she herself becomes. Like sacrificing her own HP to boost up someone else's attack and defense points. This does not happen when she uses it on herself but of course it's very useful for boosting someone else's attack or healing abilities so she'll have to decide which is more important during the fight.
EMERGING DREAM AEGIS: (UNACTIVE)
SIGNATURE MOVE (eventually.) A giant prismatic butterfly will hatch from the cocoon on her wrist and envelop Koharu or someone else in a cocoon shield, protecting them from attacks for a limited amount of time. They can still attack but the cocoon will shield them from being hit. This takes a lot energy out of Koharu and she has to be careful. The more energy she puts into this move, the stronger and bigger the shield becomes, but the more defenseless she is herself.

RP Sample: Koharu getting to know Jeannette

Other Notes: N/A