Sumire

[Sumire 0]

~Theme~

Name: Sabrina Ayaka Bryant
IGN: Sumire
Age: 17 (start of game) -> 19 (current) / 22 (perceived age)
Height: 161 cm
Weight: 54 kg

Persona

Sabrina is generally personable and pleasant by default, almost seemingly normal; her quick wit and a sense of humor lends weight to her easy way of speaking. She's not a natural orator by any means but is easy to listen to and easier to get swept away by as she does. Even cursory interactions with people she finds somewhat interesting, or useful, often reveal her deep seated tendency towards teasing; good-natured, occasionally flirtatious, and almost never intentionally hurtful or cruel, but potentially difficult for the easily flustered or off-balanced to keep up with, and like a shark smelling blood in the water she is VERY likely to keep on going until she's had her fun. She's usually pretty good at keeping herself in check if the other party seems genuinely uncomfortable, at least.

Her movements in a more social setting tend towards the languid rather than bursts of motion, but she has an enormous amount of energy and enthusiasm that she rarely even tries to hide, and a mixture of her previous exercise and club activities lead to her movements in action, particularly athletics but to a lesser degree in combat, betray a level of comfort in her body that matches her overall demeanor quite well. She rarely comes off as arrogant or even outright proud, but seems pretty comfortable in her body and not at all off-put by the transition to digital reality, her general persona confident albeit occasionally tinged by pride.

Despite having native level proficiency in both Japanese and English, listening closely will reveal a slight accent that slightly warps her speaking regardless of which she is using. Commenting on it is one of the easiest ways to get a negative reaction from her.

Virtues

Strong Willed: what she lacks in dedication and concrete goals, Sabrina makes up for with stubbornness and being a terrible loser. While not necessarily the... healthiest way of handling things, when she puts her mind to something she sticks with it. Talking her out of something is nearly impossible, whether it's a good or bad idea doesn't matter.

Opportunistic: Sabrina is absolutely stellar at taking advantage of situations. Good at reading the mood, at least if she's paying attention, and with plenty of experience in turning it to her benefit. She does this as readily with social interaction as with fighting, even if it sometimes verges on manipulative.

Teacher: while this is something that will... rarely come up on its own given her lack of variety skills, she is actually an excellent teacher. Remarkably patient and kind, at least by her standards, she can spend a surprising amount of time aiding others if they want to learn from her. At least, if they haven't pissed her off in the past.

Detail Oriented: while not a genius or anywhere close, Sabrina has a stellar attention to detail that can be a very unexpected reveal given some of her other tendencies. She just... notices things, even when she doesn't know what they mean. Exceptionally useful to her opportunistic tendencies and perhaps the biggest fire driving them. This trait could perhaps be useful to others if she actually used it for the benefit of others more often...

Flaws

Rapacious: in the end, many of her interactions with others boil down to a desire to get what she wants - and she wants a lot. A lack of self control mixed with her intense desires makes this an extremely powerful and impossible to ignore aspect of her persona as a whole. She may not mean any harm, but oftentimes doesn't think about the cost to others or shrugs it off as long as she gets what she wants.

Stubborn: there's no nice way of putting it, she's as stubborn as a braying ass and half as subtle about it. Given that she can be pretty flexible in other ways it can be a shock to see just how single-minded and block-headed she can be at times. Sabrina just keeps getting more and more frustrated as this happens, a negative feedback loop strengthening itself.

Callous: while not unable to care for people by any means, or really even actually callous per se, she can come off that way. Sabrina’s interest in most people typically extends about as far as they amuse her. While ironic given her lifelong desire for friendship, the number of times it hasn't worked out makes it harder for her to genuinely care about them, terrified of losing them again. It's a vicious feedback loop she tries to hide, even fight against, but not always effectively.

Rebellious: she hasn't had many experiences with BAD authority figures, but blames many of her early struggles in school on ineffective ones who did little or nothing to stop the bullying. Mixed with her issues with both parents trying to push her towards fulfilling their own dreams, she can be quite recalcitrant to just mindlessly obey. While not blind to how much of her high school adventure was her own fault, the number of clashes she had there have left their mark as well.

Temperamental: while she is actually quite good at hiding this flaw, its existence is perhaps her biggest issue ever since she was a child. Sabrina feels the same emotions as everyone else, but VERY intensely; they tend to rule her rather than vice-versa. This can and very often does blind her to the consequences of poorly thought out actions if she feels she has been wronged.

Insecure: a lifetime of being the #1 offender in most of her problems and ostracized for both her body and her personality have left her with deep-seated issues. It is genuinely difficult for her to believe that someone else actually cares for her, instead assuming they desire something from her. While confident in her body, she knows better than anyone how much of a trainwreck her personality is, and lives in fear of anyone who does like her finding out what she really is.

Vain: ironic given her early years and her hatred of her body then, Sabrina is quite proud of her current appearance. Going from gremlin to goddess, at least in her mind, opened many new doors. Her pride has never extended to putting others down in comparison, but her desperate need to find value in herself has led to her prioritizing what little good she can find.

Unmotivated: lazy? Cowardly? Perhaps all are true, not even Sabrina is really certain, and the thought worries her. Her real issue is that she has yet to find the motivation to actually apply her disparate skills and tendencies towards something meaningful. The amount of responsibility that aiming to become the captain of a ship or a powerful businesswoman entails frankly terrifies her.

History

Chapter 0: Prequel

Spoiler

Born to a US navy officer and a Japanese businesswoman, Sabrina is a child of two very different worlds. She still remembers bits and pieces of her first visit to the massive American base at Yokosuka, the sense of wonder and confusion she felt despite being too young to understand what she was seeing - repulsed by the noise and clamor, but drawn in by the sheer scale and spectacle of seeing the floating grey mountains in the water. Both parents made as much time as they could for her, but the 40 mile distance and each busy life taught her early to treasure what moments she did get, and led to a strange mixture of Japanese and English early in her life that led to very early multilingual development, albeit not perfect at either. What interaction with others she did have was mostly with US sailors, very little in the wise of friends her age.

That did lead to issues when she started school - her Japanese pronunciation was relatively poor, and her skin color and hair did the awkward child no favors. Children can be cruel, and she was an easy target. It didn't help that she was a bit of a brat already, spoiled as an only child, and watching her dreams of an idyllic school life crumble around her led to her acting up in turn. Her introduction to being a hāfu was the first crack in her naive optimism, the realization that she wasn't normal and might never be. She wasn't especially bright and got frustrated easily at video games, so neither school nor relaxation went especially well, but her desire to be accepted at least served as an excellent incentive to at least learn to speak right, and when the elementary school introduced English classes, as the only student in class who was actually fluent in it she enjoyed some short-lived popularity helping others out.

It was an interesting experience for her after the first few years of her scholastic experiences; being wanted, but more for her knowledge and usefulness to others than for herself. Realizing she enjoyed being able to help others, but recognizing some of them as those who had wronged her in the past. Being treated with respect, but only for that subject, and given that English was not yet a requirement at the time, she was more of a curio than a pillar. Always emotional, a mixture of relief, bitterness, and joy plagued her for the remainder of her elementary experience. It caused occasional issues and some stress in their family, with her father being called away on deployments and unable to help, but she enjoyed the occasional visits to Yokosuka even more now, and as an excellent opportunity to practice her English she continued to improve that as well. Less likely to be judged for it, if anything the sailors seemed impressed, she definitely grew more fond of it - and picked up more than a few words and phrases from them that for some reason her parents were less fond of.

Middle school went better as a whole, but had its own challenges. With very few friends starting off and a tendency to default to defensiveness she certainly soured a few prospective friendships, but her harsh experience in trying to blend in helped out enormously for the first year of middle school especially, where she could almost pass herself off as just looking a little different and being a little awkward at times. She managed to make a few friends, and sports clubs proved a welcome repose and opportunity all in one, bringing her together with others and letting her channel her natural energy into something physical. Actually being able to feel as though she belonged was a heady experience.

Then puberty hit her like a 747 wrapped in an aircraft carrier, and things got... complicated again. Her mixed blood led to her being a bit taller than many of her counterparts, and while at best slightly above average looking as a child, she didn't have much experience being attractive - especially not attractive BECAUSE of her Otherness rather than instead of it. With absolutely no idea how to handle her first boyfriend much less the rush of attention she was getting, she ended up taking it for granted a bit too easily, which caused plenty of issues on its own; treating those interested in her poorly and garnering enough attention from those who already had a significant other that her popularity among other girls swan dived to the bottom of the Marianas Trench. While not intentional on her part, aspects of her selfish, at times self-serving nature resurfaced, happy to use some of her suitors for material purposes and taking out grudges and resentment against girls who she felt had wronged her earlier in life. Carried away by the allure of feeling exotic and desirable for once, she was far from entirely innocent in a number of breakups.

Increasingly frustrated with her busy parents, even as their relationship frayed from the stress of both keeping their at times long distance relationship functional as well as their daughter's ongoing issues in school, she took it out on her classmates and even friends at times, not realizing that her group continued to shrink until it seemed like none were left. By the time she was in high school, she ended up in a few physical confrontations with other girls, and once with a boy, reinforcing rather than shedding the stigma attached to her. While her excellent English and a few other strengths in school helped at times, she didn't excel overall, more clever than brilliant and lacking the discipline to actually buckle down and do well at the subjects that came less easily to her.

Without much in the way of friends once again, she was forced to find new ways to spend her time. Dabbling in fashion, jewelry, smoking, even short lived forays into trying drugs and alcohol led to her rapidly falling in with less than ideal groups. It felt like somewhere she could belong, but seeing what happened to those with serious problems as well helped enormously to hold her back from embracing the lifestyle or facing addiction, and terrified her parents - furthering the stress on what she now recognized was a nearly broken relationship only held together out of a desire to see her happy, something she only belatedly realized was in part related to her struggles in school. Whether or not it was actually her fault was irrelevant; she couldn't help but feel that it was.

It didn't help that each of them expected different things from her. Her perfect fluency in English, interest in ships, and experience on the naval base led her father to push her towards going to an American university, and/or ideally joining a navy that treated women with more respect than some other branches, where she could potentially become an officer or even a captain as long as she didn't wash out of school - where she could earn the respect of those serving with and under her, the perfect evolution of the American and Japanese in direct opposition of what had happened in WWII. While he had struggled with racism in his youth, by now he was every bit of fond of Japan as his home country, and after witnessing the revulsion and resentment that many Japanese people felt towards dumb-ass sailors, especially prevalent in the wake of the occasional murders and rapes that made headlines, he truly hoped to see her rise as proof that the relationship between the countries could prove greater than the sum of its flawed parts.

Her mother, now a fairly successful businesswoman who made significantly more than her husband, stridently disagreed - while she too wanted the best for her daughter, it was impossible for her not to notice the detrimental effects of her daughter's history spending time with coarse US sailors and marines, especially after the time she had come back drunk as hell after a night out with servicemen. She thought it was high time Sabrina get her head out of the clouds, focus on her grades, get into a good university, and make something of herself in the civilian sector - while not especially intelligent, her rapidly growing charisma and ability to influence others was something her mother felt could lead to incredible success in the business sector in particular, a strike back against the patriarchal business leadership that she felt infested most Japanese companies.

For her part, Sabrina was pretty happy to ride both of their good will into the sunset, but even she couldn't ignore the reality that life was fast approaching her, and at 17 she managed to convince her parents to get her a Nerve Gear, claiming - mostly honestly - that she was just under a lot of stress and that she thought it would do her good to have an outlet. Implying that it could even help her avoid some of the vices her parents were desperate to drive her away from. She knew to a degree that it was manipulative, almost enough to apologize, but the idea of something new and exciting was enough that she assuaged her guilt by promising herself that she would follow through with it if things worked out - she didn't have any real attachment to any of those vices or really even many of her so-called 'friends' and punks, and her mounting frustration with what she was now beginning to understand was her own doing in toxifying her school experience, led to an increasing desire for escape - and why not do so as literally as possible?

Discovering after the fact that she had signed up to be trapped in a death game really only bothered her in that it was a death game - unlike natural gamers or competitive types or those who wanted to return home, she was more than happy to assume that the frontliners would solve everything for the rest of them, and in the meantime she was more than happy to live in a world with no real responsibilities, no mounting deadline for life-changing decisions, and the freedom to do whatever the hell she wanted, whether it be trying out new foods, exploring the crafting system, maybe even experimenting with fishing. Hell, even the idea of fighting didn't really bother her; she had absolutely no experience or skill with the game's Sword Arts and weapons, but she had thrown hands a few times in school and gotten a bit of a reputation for it, so it couldn't be that bad, right? There was just that whole... dying thing, which did an excellent job of keeping her on the first floor, in the starting town, for quite some time.

But deep down, regardless of what she told herself or how well she convinced herself it was true, she knew that she couldn't stay stationary forever. All her life she had been chasing after things. Whether it had been friendship, popularity, acceptance, or in her teenage years more of a hunt for thrills and meaning. She could never truly turn that aspect of herself off, never truly deny it in its entirety, and what could be done in the starting town was limited at best. Tales of unbelievably delicious food crafted from rare materials on higher floors, intricately detailed trinkets, housing, excitement, thrills, adrenaline rushes... over time the allure could only grow, though whether it would match her indolence or cowardice in time was an open question for a long time.

 

 

Edited June 27, 2020 by Sumire

[Sumire 0]

Stats

• Level: 4
• Hit Points: 80
• Energy: 8
• Damage: 6 (1 base, 2 weapon, 3 from 2h weapon skill)
• Mitigation: 0
• Accuracy: 0
• Evasion: 0

 

Skills

• Total SP: 9
• Used SP: 5
• Free SP: 4

Weapon Skills

• 2H Assault Spear

Equipment

Weapon:

• Tier 1 2H Rare Assault Spear [Enhancements: Damage II]

Armor:

• Tier 1 Light Armor [Vanity]

Inventory

Consumables:

• Tier 1 Starter Healing Potions (+50HP) [3]
• Tier 1 Health Potions of Rare Quality'(+40HP) [1]
• Tier 1 Uncommon Damage Potion (+1 DMG) [1]
• Tier 1 Over-Health Potion (+50 Max HP) [1]

Crafting Materials:

• Tier 1 materials [10]

Edited June 27, 2020 by Sumire

[Sumire 0]

Changelog

6/25/2020

Spoiler

character registered with Starter Set B "DPS Package"

First topic - +4SP, +400 col, + Tier 1 'Health Potions of Rare Quality' (+40HP), + Tier 1 Uncommon Damage Potion (+1 DMG), + Tier 1 Over-Health Potion (+50 Max HP)
Level updated from 1 to 4, HP from 20 to 80, energy from 2 to 8
Ego increased from Large to Very Large

 

Edited June 27, 2020 by Sumire

[Sumire 0]

Reserved because formatting is hard and I'm probably going to completely rearrange this at some point to sate my seething rage at trying to make it look nice.

[Oscar 0]