Junko Oshiro | Runic Student

junko oshiro,

breathe in your fiery air

Personality overall

At first glance Junko seems to be a relatively friendly, almost whimsical sort of being who likes to both have fun and chase her passions in equal measure, and this is truly a very core part of her personality. She's always been driven through life by what captures her interest most at the moment, usually a new hobby or skill, and has the sharply intelligent, devious aura of a playful feline. She acts a bit like one too— likes to tease and toy with her food, appreciates lounging in soft places, gets grumpy when told "no". She's cunning and sly with a fondness for prodding, poking, and teasing at people to get a rise out of them in a way that's... usually not malicious. In some ways you could almost call her childish (both in personality and the things she likes), but being one to chase what she wants in life means that she rarely gives up without a fight and hides some fangs beneath all that lace and frill. Junko has a steely will, keen eyes to pick apart the world's secrets, and a coldness to her that can be downright frigid if she decides to turn it upon you. She plays hard ball, zeroing in on insecurities and mercilessly tearing at them with her words without much care for what damage she might be leaving in her wake. She's not nice when her temper boils over and, frankly, her emotions can be a bit volatile under the right circumstances.

When matters of politics and morals come up, it becomes obvious that Junko is somewhat lacking in the empathy department. Her morality is best described as True Neutral— aligned only to her own interests —and she just doesn't care for matters that don't directly affect her. Magi relocation camps? Cyborg rights? Well, she's neither of those races, so cold logic dictates that none of that is really her concern. Junko is well aware of the fact that this view is seen as "cruel" by the general public, she's not an idiot and has been chewed out over it before, but this doesn't change her. She doesn't feel one way or another about all these issues. She doesn't care. Even still, Junko would not go out of her way to be evil (her sadistic streak only emerges when someone really earns her ire) and sees senseless cruelty and this whole business of "cleansing the magi race" as a simple waste of effort. All these Hunter zealot types are just embarrassing. This apathy is usually a side of her that you won't see in normal conversation, though, so you'll find her to be warm and friendly enough given that she's in a good mood. Just don't try to give her any condolences for her rather ill health. She hates to be on the receiving end of pity and will snap at anyone she feels is treating her like she is breakable or lesser.

She's happiest, by far, when engrossed in something that stimulates her mind— like a good puzzle or interesting project —and is almost overly fixated on her studies in Runic magic. She loves unraveling any mystery she comes across and Junko's attention has been particularly snared by the freedom of runes that can be interwoven, combined, used in tandem to unlock new power; that and the secrets of the University. She's always been unable to resist her own curiosity, and this is one place with quite a lot of dark corners to nose her way into.

appearance

In a word? Small. Standing at a rounded 5' tall and 95 lbs, Junko has always been slight in stature and seemed to hit a premature wall as far as growth is concerned. She's short, yes, but also very thin and with not much to speak of in terms of curves, a fact that she's come to accept with a grumpy sort of resignation. One of many reasons that she's generally not too happy with her body. Junko's thin limbs and jutting bones don't speak of fitness or good health, they make it very clear to the casual observer that she is... well, sickly. Being pale as chalk and prone to shivering if so much as a cool breeze blows by make it quite obvious.

Be it a product of bad genes or the universe making her into its own piece of amusement, Junko has been plagued by bad health since she was born. The biggest piece of this is her anemia— crippling enough that she would have died in the womb without intervention —but thankfully the nanobots present in her bloodstream serve to constantly monitor and adjust her iron levels so that she's rarely in danger. This has still left her physically weak, though, and with mild asthma that makes even moderate exercise a major chore. Her immune system is woefully inactive as well (she swears that she's had the same head cold for about 10 years) and that's not even the end of it. At a young age Junko was diagnosed with Wegener's granulomatosis— a disease caused by the inflammation of blood vessels in her sinuses, lungs, and kidneys that leaves her beleaguered by headaches, fatigue, and the occasional nosebleed. Not a great combo with anemia.

Back on the surface, Junko is a pale girl of Ikigain descent with a sort of doll-like look to her, something that's only amplified by the way she chooses to dress, and she wears an easy confidence despite the rather fragile state of her body. Her eyes are often lazily half lidded and a golden amber color while her hair is, interestingly enough, a dark plum hue. The natural color of it is actually black, but a few years ago she was dared by a friend to dye it and became extremely fond of the color. Now she touches it up whenever it starts to fade.


It doesn't take a long period of knowing Junko to get the sense that the girl has a very particular sense of style. She likes it girly. Ruffly skirts, lace edged tops, ribbons, and knee socks are some of the most common fixtures in her wardrobe and she tends to lean towards blacks and whites with the occasional pop of color in her accessories. It can sometimes be aggravating for her to balance her desire to be cute and put together with the fact that she's almost constantly cold, so it's also very common to see her bundled in puffy sweatshirts when she's settled down to study.

family relations

Parents
Mother: Izumi Oshiro (60. living in Felici)
Father: Katsu Oshiro (58. living in Felici)

Siblings
Brother: Arata Oshiro (33. living in Ikigai Isles)
Sister: Hikari Oshiro (28. living in Dagos)

Extended Family
N/A

biography

Izumi and Katsu Oshiro first met as colleagues, both new and ambitious engineers straight out of college in Tensai who threw themselves eagerly into the workforce and crossed paths when they became employed in the same lab. A friendly sort of rivalry was the first dynamic to blossom between them— they liked to challenge each other to see who could make more discoveries, get more recognition, climb the promotional ladder more quickly —but once they'd settled into their work over the years the two likewise decided to settle down with each other. They were a very busy and accomplished couple, yet after only two years of marriage they had a child on the way. A son they named Arata. Success seemed to be a constant fixture for the Oshiro family as the two parents continued to bring in a cushy income, their son growing strong and taking a clear interest in engineering, and their daughter, Hikari, joined them five years after their first child. Good fortune continue to find them past this point, too, as Izumi and Katsu were both approached with a proposition— to make up part of the core team in a new robotics lab in Ethea. It was an opportunity beyond anything that they would likely find if they stayed in Ikigai, so the family picked up their life in their home country to set down new roots in Felici.

Because of this, Junko really has no ties to the Ikigai Isles beyond blood and a few of the cultural traditions her parents chose to share with her and her siblings (they'd always been very modern people who preferred to adapt to their surroundings) so if you asked her for her nationality, she would tell you "Ethean". That was where she was born and raised, after all.

It was in the yearn 2568 that the Oshiro family welcomed its third and final child into the world... though the time surrounding Junko's birth was honestly a very rocky few months. The doctors noticed anomalies in the unborn child's heartbeat not long into Izumi's pregnancy and diagnosed the problem as a dangerous case of fetal anemia that, without intensive treatment, would surely lead to heart failure long before Junko could be born. Fortunately, funds for all of these treatments were something that Junko's parents had to spare and they closely monitored her progress until that ninth month finally rolled around. The birth went surprisingly smoothly, though there was a cloud of worries surrounding Junko's health from moment she took her first breath. The anemia, her tendency to fall sick almost weekly, then the later diagnosis of vasculitis. Yes it definitely didn't take long for everyone to get used to the fact that she would never be the athletic type.

Despite the somewhat dreary start to her life, Junko's family still seemed to be a shining example of success to outsiders and there were not too many scares with her health throughout her childhood. She had to keep an inhaler around in case of emergencies, plus the medical nanobots buzzing through her blood, and her own susceptibility to sickness very much annoyed her, but the early years were nothing too bad. At least not in terms of her health. Her relationship with her family is and was... distant. Arata, her older brother, had deemed that there was too much of an age gap between them to ever really pay attention to Junko and he was as eager to work as his parents had been, getting a job as a computer technician right out of school and actually moving back to Ikigai before she got past her early teens. Her parents were constantly busy with work to the point that she saw nannies and tutors (homeschooling for the sake of her health) far more often than either of them and, though they were kind and did genuinely care about their children's happiness, Junko never held any illusions that she came before their work. Her sister Hikari, though, seemed to see things differently.

Hikari was four years older than Junko and the black sheep of the family as far as interests went. While Arata had always been fascinated by machines and Junko pin balled between numerous, science oriented interests, Hikari wanted to be an actress. Said she wanted the attention, the fame, the eyes on her. Their parents were still supportive even though they found it a bit odd (hard to relate as a bookish engineer), yet Hikari had always been strangely paranoid about their true feelings. At first she'd been proud of being different until that confidence shook with uncertainty, turning to self-consciousness, then to spite. She became convinced that their parents liked Junko better and Junko's big sister likewise became someone to fear. Hikari discovered that she could take out her frustrations on the younger girl since they were so often left to the custody of nannies who would only give her a slap on the wrist, at worst, and so she did— pulling Junko's hair, hiding her toys, grabbing at her arms in places where the bruises would be hidden. Terrorizing her whenever her own insecurities flared up. It was equally physical and verbal as Hikari took a mean sort of glee out of teasing Junko about her health, too. You could say that Junko learned how to go for a person's soft spots by being on the receiving end, and this is the main reason why she's so fixated on strengthening herself with knowledge. She hates to feel weak and defenseless because it's familiar.

What made matters worse was that Junko was home schooled for almost the entirety of her formal education and, without the ability to get involved or meet children her age, she was trapped at home throughout her childhood. Puzzles were something that she picked up to entertain herself during the times that she was bedridden— crosswords, riddles, puzzle cubes; anything worked —and over the years she tested her interest in a variety of subjects. Numerous textbooks filled Junko's bedroom bookshelf but no one subject seemed to hold her attention for too long, the initial fascination always fading, until she curiously decided to investigate a few books on runic magic. Now that was when she felt fascination. The magic, the mysteries, the power of the runes; a 16 year old Junko couldn't seem to learn enough about it all and it became apparent that she could only really study this if she enrolled in the University. She wanted to do it right away (home schooling meant that she earned her GED early), but it was around then that her health hit a particularly rough patch and she'd been deemed too unstable to attend. 3 years of waiting went by in which Junko got as much of a head start on her degree as she could while waiting for the doctors to get her medications and treatment just right and, at 19, she could finally leave to enroll.

Gods she'd never been happier than when she heard that news. It wasn't as if she would be going very far from the family home— it was in the same city after all —but she was still powerfully relieved to get out from under that roof and be able to surround herself with study on runes. She excelled at it, too, and readily adapted to juggling the classes that would certify her to work with runes while also pursuing her chosen major in Psychiatry. Junko had always displayed an impressive ability to memorize and recall information which served her well at the University and she garnered a reputation for being a very good student who asked a lot of questions. Questions are how she best learns, however there's the added component of her curiosity that... doesn't necessarily end at the material she needs for her classes. There are secrets to runic magic, guarded truths that the professors dance around for reasons unknown to her, and Junko has always been consumed by a desire to know. After 6 years (now onto her Masters degree) and this much digging, it's uncertain where peering down the rabbit hole might lead her.

Default Skills

- Runic Novice: After a lengthy period of time studying the Olden Language you have now been given your first small amount of ink to practice. Well done, student. You can now do Simple Magic Circles with very basic Instructions.
***Your max circle count is 1.




Runic Apprentice: You have proven yourself to be a trustworthy student in the Runic Practice. You are careful in forming each and every stroke (when being tested at least) and have memorized the symbols thus far given you. The professors have decided that you are ready to learn more symbols and phrases. You've now started to combine runes in to more complex Circles.
***Your max circle count is 3.

Runic Advanced: This is the level that approved professor characters will be placed at. Not too newbie where someone will ask "um, why are you a teacher?" but still allowing room for the character to upgrade their abilities. Your circle knowledge is enough that you can even put a complex circle within a complex circle.
***Your max circle count is 5.

Runic Expert: You are at the top of your field. It is not an odd sight to see a Runic User at this level to not only charitably help society but take paid jobs through the Government and the Hunter Guild. But most importantly, you are the major force of the University itself. Your skill has reached the point that you can have even 3 levels of complex runes within a single rune.
***Your max circle count is 7.


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[b]d. gray man, road kamelot[/b] as [i]junko oshiro[/i]