Post by Sparrow Akiyama on Jun 1, 2010 18:49:48 GMT -5
Sparrow Akiyama
Full Name- Suzume “Sparrow” Akiyama
Gender- Female
Age- 23
Date of Birth- 7 March 1988
Sexual Orientation- Heterosexual
Location- Transient
Celebrity Claim- Kuroki, Meisa
What should we call you?- Rayne
Play anyone else?- Rayne Campbell, Dakari Johessman
Have You Read the Rules?- Tomall is life, and Owldele is luuuuv.
Personality-
Spontaneity- Sparrow is fun-loving and adventurous. She is flexible- perhaps too flexible- and very open-minded. She likes to laugh and tries to make other people laugh as well. She is very energetic and impulsive, and easy to get along with.
Empathy- A very compassionate person, she connects with the emotions of others, and understands them. Usually, she uses both emotion and logic to make decisions, but at times, she simply follows her heart. She finds it easy to trust others, and is often hurt when others do not live up to her expectations.
Social life- She loves being in the center of things, and will sometimes fight for attention. Despite this, she is very modest, at least on the outside, probably due to her Japanese background. She is a perfectionist, and makes a point of always being on time.
Commitments- She can identify her short-term wants and needs and will gladly work toward them, though she does get impatient when things do not happen immediately. However, when it comes to long-term commitments, she can be very indecisive. She is restless and moves often; there is no particular place that she refers to as “home.” Most of her relationships do not last long- her longest friendship has lasted for two years, and her longest romantic relationship lasted only three months.
Rules- While she does respect authority, when it is wielded properly, she finds rules too constricting; she prefers to think of them as helpful guidelines. She is free-willed and fiercely independent. Instead of following society’s general code of ethics, she has developed a strong set of personal morals that she follows faithfully.
Likes-
- Music- Sparrow enjoys listening to most kinds of music, but especially likes jazz, hip-hop, American pop, and J-Pop.
- Rain- While everyone else is scurrying for shelter from the rain, Sparrow often goes out and takes walks in it. She finds the rain refreshing and soothing.
- Pinball- She loves pinball machines and has become pretty good at playing them.
- Dancing- Dancing is a form of expression for her, and she knows a little bit of many styles, from ballet to club dances.
- Traveling- She likes going to new places and becoming immersed in the local culture.
Dislikes-
- Being sick- Sparrow does not get sick often, but when she does, she becomes completely miserable. Sneezing and coughing does a number on her tiny frame.
- Airport security- She never seems to be able to comply with all of the security protocols, such as not wearing belts or buckles, or even forgetting to take a weapon out of her purse. While she loves flying, she sometimes drives instead just to avoid the hassle.
- Poor grammar and spelling- Sparrow feels that if she, a non-native speaker of anything but Japanese, can speak, spell, and write better than you in your native language, you should be ashamed.
- Liars- Sparrow hates being lied to, as she believes that honesty among people is important to the well-being of society.
- Being underestimated- Sparrow feels that people often underestimate her due to her small frame and general cuteness. This annoys her, and usually results in her doing something to demonstrate that she should not be discounted.
Strengths-
- Self-confident- Sparrow is very sure of herself and the choices she makes.
- Able to commit to short-term projects- She easily dedicates herself to anything that needs to be done in the moment, and will not stop working until a task is completed.
- Fast learner- Having lived among many different cultures, she has learned to pick up on information very quickly. This strength helped her get through school and is a definite asset in her line of work.
- Excellent communicator- She is not afraid to speak her mind, but she does so in the most tactful and respectful way possible. She also listens to others when they speak and asks questions to ensure that they understand each other.
- Able to adapt to change- Also a result of moving often as a child, sudden changes do not affect Sparrow very much. In fact, she enjoys the excitement and uncertainty that changes bring.
Weaknesses-
- Impatient- Sparrow always wants instant gratification. She has trouble waiting for things to happen, especially anything she has worked toward.
- Unable to commit in the long run- She has trouble planning things out and is a little intimidated by the future.
- Acts without thinking- She does not always think things through before she speaks or makes decisions. While she is usually fine with the outcome, this does sometimes lead to regrets later in life.
- Must be the center of attention- A lack of attention growing up has led to Sparrow’s ambition to always be “the life of the party.” She feels unloved and left out when a person’s attention is not completely focused on her.
- Overemotional- Occasionally, she abandons reason and relies on her feelings instead, which makes her biased and stubborn.
Skills-
- Excellent driver- After driving cars over walls of fire at top speed and jackknifing eighteen-wheelers, rush hour really pales in comparison.
- Speaks several languages- Having visited and lived in so many places forced Sparrow to gain a basic understanding of English, Mandarin, Korean, Spanish, and French, in addition to her native Japanese. She speaks English with only a slight accent that is most noticeable on her Ls, Rs, Fs, and Hs.
- Computer-literate- She is fairly familiar with computer technology, and can troubleshoot basic problems on them. She has never hacked anything, though.
Flaws-
- Fear of the future- While not a full-blown phobia, thinking about her future definitely stresses Sparrow out, and she prefers avoiding it as much as possible.
- Allergic to penicillin- She is allergic to penicillin, and has to use other antibiotics.
- Allergic to iodine- She is also allergic to iodine and iodine-based products, and has to avoid them.
Abilities/Powers/Skills-
Sparrow is a civilian and has never had superhuman abilities, with the exception of April Fourth. However, her work as a stuntwoman and live-action model required her to develop some combat skills. She has studied some of the martial arts, and is a very good gymnast.
Melee: Sparrow has studied karate and jujutsu. The knowledge of these techniques has helped her with her stunt work, which often calls for her to act as a stunt double and fight in place of movie stars.
Swordsmanship: Sparrow has studied iaijutsu and kenjutsu, which are traditional Japanese techniques of drawing and sparring with the sword, respectively. She is also familiar with kendo.
Gymnastics: Sparrow’s acrobatic training began when she was a child, and she has practiced it on and off since then. She is very good at the usual floor maneuvers, especially flips and somersaults, but her specialties are aerial moves on beams and bars. This skill was one of the main factors in her landing the role as the live-action model for Korin, who performs the sort of stunts that only a video-game character could really be capable of.
Limits-
Melee: Sparrow’s study of karate and jujutsu was brief and not in-depth. She is not an expert at either of them, and her technique would probably be heavily criticized by anyone who is.
Swordsmanship: Again, Sparrow only has a basic knowledge of these techniques. She only studied them for a few months for the movies and video games she was working on.
Gymnastics: Her background in gymnastics is helpful in doing stunts, but is not something she can depend on as a defensive technique.
Appearance-
Sparrow is short and small, standing a mere five feet four inches tall and weighing in at one hundred fifteen pounds. Her figure is very subtly curved and is easily lost under a large T-shirt and baggy pants. Her complexion is a very light brown; her hands and feet are tiny. She keeps her black hair straight and long, and sometimes has brown highlights added to it.
She does not look like a typical Japanese woman due to a bit of South American blood in her lineage. Her eyes are brown and almond-shaped, and her nose is small. Her lips are a little thicker than one would expect. Overall, her face is oval-shaped. She wears eyeliner and lipstick often, and adds blush, foundation, and mascara for special events.
Her style of dress varies from day to day, depending on what she feels like wearing in the morning. Sometimes, she will put on jeans and a blouse, or go for a sundress. She also wears suits when the occasion calls for it. Most of her clothes are soft, pastel colors, but she does go for lots of black every now and then. Usually, she wears her hair down, but when she knows she will be very active, such as on a movie set, she pins it up.
Faction- Hero/ Company
Birthplace- Osaka, Japan
Mother- Kiyoko Kawaguchi/ 50/ Teacher/ Civilian
Father- Kenji “Andrew” Akiyama/ 55/ Film director and producer/ Civilian
Sister- Hana Akiyama/ 6/ Deceased/ Unknown
Stepmother- Mei Song/ 42/ Actress/ Special- Tactile Retrospection, Retrogression
Stepsister- Da-Xia “Sydney” Lai/ 26/ Actress /Special-Ergokinesis
History-
Suzume was born into a fairly wealthy family. While her mother, a teacher named Kiyoko, did not make much money, her father, Kenji, had been quite successful and was very well known in the Japanese movie industry. The Akiyamas were able to give their daughter a happy childhood, especially in her youngest years. When Suzume was six years old, her father began to move them around the world as he worked on different film projects. Over the next several years, the Akiyamas lived in Osaka, Seoul, Hong Kong, Paris, Toronto, Maui, and Auckland. Suzume took to each new home easily, although the family sometimes spent as few as six months there.
The movies did well in Japan, but Suzume’s father soon decided that Japanese fame was not enough. He wanted to be internationally renowned, and for that, he decided he would have to move to America and integrate himself into the film industry there. The Akiyamas settled down in Los Angeles for a while, but ended up moving often, whenever Kenji took on a new project. At different times, they lived in Chicago, New York, Seattle, and Salt Lake City. Kenji adopted the more American name Andrew, and Suzume began using the English translation of her name’s kanji, “sparrow.”
When Sparrow was ten, and the family was living in New York, Kiyoko gave birth to another daughter, Hana. The family quickly realized that something was different about Hana as she did not sweat or respond to injuries. After several moths of testing and diagnosing, her doctors determined that Hana had been born with CIPA, or congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis. Hana needed constant monitoring and had to be handled very carefully. She beat the odds and made it through her infancy, though she had many accidents, including biting her tongue and gums often as her teeth grew in. Sparrow often wound up babysitting her, and had to learn how to take care of her.
Hana grew very close to Sparrow, perhaps closer than she was to their parents. She suffered from mild mental retardation due to her CIPA, and had to learn when to eat and use the bathroom, as she was unable to feel the usual sensations associated with those needs. She attended kindergarten for a few months when she was five years old, but Kiyoko decided to homeschool her instead, feeling that the teachers at Hana’s school were unequipped to handle the child’s unusual condition.
The Akiyamas moved to Salt Lake City that year. The next summer, Hana passed away from complications resulting from her anhidrosis. Her loss completely devastated the family. Sparrow, who was sixteen at the time, was especially heartbroken. Her schoolteachers had her speak to a grief counselor. Her parents each blamed themselves for the death- Andrew for wanting to move to a city with such a warm climate, and Kiyoko for not monitoring the child more closely.
Over the next year, the family drifted apart. They moved back to New York, and Andrew left on his own to work on a movie being filmed in Vancouver. Kiyoko slipped into a deep depression. A few months later, Andrew and Kiyoko officially separated, and their divorce was finalized the next year. Sparrow divided her time between her parents, but found Andrew easier to connect with. Kiyoko returned to her family in Osaka after Sparrow graduated from high school.
Sparrow was accepted to Georgetown University, but left the college after a year, claiming that it had too serious an atmosphere for her. She transferred to Tulane University for her sophomore year, but left it after a year as well, declaring that Tulane was too much of a “party school.” She then transferred to the University of California at Berkeley, and remained there for the next two years just for the sake of graduating with a degree in something. She eventually earned a bachelor’s in Asian studies, focusing on Japan, and a minor in music.
While she was in school at Berkeley, Sparrow worked as a stunt double for several movies. Her father had used her as an extra and, later, as a stunt person in several of his projects, so she was used to the job and had an impressive portfolio coming into it. She earned a reputation for being reliable and taking on some of the toughest stunts in the script.
Meanwhile, Sparrow’s father was still chasing his dream of becoming a major American film director. He gave a major role in one of his films to a Chinese actress named Mei Song. Andrew and Mei dated for a few months, then got married. The marriage came as a complete surprise to Sparrow. She had reservations about the relationship at first, because Mei was much younger than her father and had a daughter of her own, and simply because the idea of her father remarrying just did not sit well with her. She eventually grew to accept the marriage, conceding that Mei and her daughter, Sydney, were both wonderful people. However, she continued to keep in touch with her mother, who was recovering from a stay in a mental facility, and who wished Andrew well in his new marriage.
Her roommate at Berkeley was a young woman from Mexico named Esperanza Velásquez. They got along well enough, and were compatible roommates. However, being a very observant person, and being in such close quarters, Sparrow quickly noticed Esperanza’s strange sleeping habits. She fell asleep during class often, and seldom slept at night. Sparrow suggested that Esperanza visit a doctor about the condition, but Esperanza refused, and after several arguments over the issue, Esperanza finally revealed her reason for not seeing a doctor: The unusual sleep patterns were caused by a unique ability she had developed, which she referred to as “hypnokinesis.” Esperanza had not quite learned to control the ability yet- she was no longer causing people to fall asleep around her, but she had not figured out how to keep herself from falling asleep.
This was Sparrow’s first exposure to the existence of specials. After swearing Sparrow to secrecy, Esperanza explained that there were many others around the world with many different abilities. Sparrow was surprised and impressed by the news, though she did wish she had some sort of ability herself.
That wish was granted for four minutes and thirty-four seconds on the fourth of April, 2010. Sparrow and Esperanza had been asleep and reading, respectively, in their room, when a sudden bright light woke Sparrow and caught Esperanza’s attention. Sparrow was quite disturbed to discover that the light was coming from her hands. The two women assumed that Sparrow was manifesting an ability, and Esperanza helped Sparrow learn to control the ability through her mind. Sparrow had just been getting the hang of it when the experiment ended, and went back to being a normal person a bit reluctantly.
A couple of weeks later, Esperanza disappeared for five days. Naturally, Sparrow became worried about her friend. She contacted Esperanza’s family, who assured her that they knew where Esperanza was and that she was safe, but would not actually tell Sparrow where Esperanza was. Sparrow remained worried until Esperanza finally reappeared. At first, Esperanza would not tell Sparrow where she had been either, insisting that she had been asked to keep it a secret. But, seeing how distraught Sparrow had been, Esperanza gave in and told Sparrow that her parents had sent her to Las Vegas to a hotel run by the Company, a secretive group that helped people with abilities. They had done a “routine checkup” and taught her how to manage her ability better. Sure enough, that night, Esperanza was able to make herself fall asleep with no trouble, and she did not fall asleep spontaneously during her classes, either. Sparrow was pretty impressed, and wanted to find out more about the Company, who had helped her best friend so charitably.
Sparrow and Esperanza graduated from college in May. Esperanza landed a job as a teacher’s assistant at Berkeley, and Sparrow, who is not sure what she wants as a career, continues to work as a stuntwoman whenever she can find a movie that needs her. For the past two years, she has also been the live-action model for a video game character named Korin, who is a crime-fighting geisha. The video game has been largely unsuccessful, mostly due to its nonsensical plots, but it does have a cult following among video-game freaks and it provides Sparrow with another source of income. She travels often, and is sometimes called on do stunts for her stepsister or stepmother or in her father’s movies. There is very little constancy in Sparrow’s life, but she likes the excitement of not knowing what comes next, and does not plan to sit down and map out her future for a while.
Anything else?- Ideally, Sparrow would be accepted into the Company and assigned as Kang-Dae Wu’s civilian partner. Also, sorry if Esperanza’s Company story doesn’t work.
Sample RP-
Sparrow glanced at her watch. The hands indicated that there were ten minutes left in her lunch break. That would be more than enough time for a quick bathroom run.
The young woman followed the signs that had been hung up around the school that pointed to each set location, the cafeteria, and the restrooms. She found the restrooms easily, and within the next few minutes, had relieved herself and was washing her hands at the sink.
After grabbing a paper towel and drying her hands, Sparrow headed toward the door she had entered through and twisted the handle.
The door did not budge.
Sparrow tried again. The handle turned just a little, but not enough. Someone, probably an unwitting janitor or school official, had locked the restroom door from the outside. She was sure it had been an honest mistake, not anything intentional. Still, she needed to be back on set soon.
She raised a fist and rapped on the door, calling, “Hello?” a few times. But there was no answer, and she could not hear anything happening in the hallway at all.
Time for a new tactic. Sparrow tried fiddling with the lock, sliding a card between the door and its frame in an attempt to dislodge the deadbolt. When that failed, she tried knocking and shouting again, with no results.
She now had five minutes to be back on set. Now she was growing worried. Sparrow hated being late to anything, especially when her tardiness would throw someone else off schedule. She reached into her purse and took out her cell phone, then called her father, who was on set that day.
"Hi, Daddy? You won’t believe this, but I’m locked in the bathroom. Could you send someone to get me out? …Thanks. Love you madly.”
She flipped the phone closed and leaned against the wall. A couple of minutes passed; then she heard voices in the hallway, and a key turning in a lock. The door swung open, and she was greeted by the faces of her father and an unfamiliar maintenance worker. The maintenance worker was apologizing profusely, while her father looked mildly annoyed.
“It’s nothing,” Sparrow said cheerfully, finally leaving her temporary tiled prison. She still had two minutes to get on set, so she was happy. “Thank you. Let’s go back.”
