PLAYER INFORMATION
PLAYER: Guessy
ARE YOU AT LEAST 14 YEARS OLD?: Yes
IF UNDER 18 YEARS OLD, PLEASE STATE YOUR AGE: n/a
CONTACT: guessy @ plurk
PERSONAL JOURNAL: rickroading
CHARACTERS PLAYED: None

CHARACTER INFORMATION
NAME: Hina Kagiyama
CANON: Touhou Project
CANON REFERENCE: Hina's entry in Symposium of Post-Mysticism (translated)
AGE: 15
GENDER: Female
YEAR IN SCHOOL/FACULTY POSITION: HS1

APPEARANCE: Christmas Tree A small, green-haired girl who is really, really fond of red dresses, ribbons and lace.

PERSONALITY:
Thanks to her history and the nature of her ability, Hina has already decided on her purpose in life; she feels it is her responsibility to pull away misfortune from others and dispose of it safely. At her current level, she can manage the former but not the latter, which is her primary reason for attending the Institute.

Hina at heart is a very sweet person who just wants to help others, but at the same time is aware of the problems she can cause, resulting in a constant balance of trying to help whilst trying to remain distant, despite her own loneliness. Modern technology actually helps with this a lot, through it's something she's only slowly coming to understand.

She is someone who is used to being hated or avoided; due to her miasma, it's only natural other people would avoid her. She is aware of this, and accepts it; even relies on it in some cases. Even though she is lonely, she will try her best to keep her distance for their protection, though she is perfectly friendly otherwise.

Hina tends to think of herself more as a bad luck charm than as a mutant. Whilst she finds the abilities of others quite amazing, she doesn't particularly feel 'special' or as if the mutants and humans are or should be separate. She considers everyone equally and treats everyone equally; misfortune befalls everyone, after all. She actually alienates herself in a lot of ways.

In terms of hobbies, Hina loves to dance and spin, and favours outfits with lots of ribbons and such-like that can spin with her. She also likes dolls (in Canon, she is the leader of the Nagashi-bina Doll Army, in reference to the Japanese ritual of transferring one's sins and misfortune to a doll - a Nagashi-bina - and throwing it in a river), but never really built up a collection due to her constantly moving around. She also has an affinity for living in the woods and camping, again due to her going homeless for a lot of her life.

Due to the vague and invisible nature of her power, it can be hard to determine what is and isn't her fault, and Hina herself is no exception. As she constantly gives off 'bad omen' vibes (not a personality trait; it's just you can kind of tell misfortune hangs in the air around her), it's pretty easy to misattribute bad events to her doing when it is, in fact, completely unrelated. She can and often does fall into this trap herself, though she knows she is only responsible for minor faults at most. She doesn't blame herself for these incidents, just resolves to work harder to prevent them.

The problem Hina faces is that all she wants to do is help people, but doing something invisible like 'manipulating misfortune' isn't terribly rewarding. Worse, because the miasma strikes anyone in close contact with her, the problems she can cause appear more directly to her than any benefits. Though her drawing misfortune away from everyone else does result in a net good, it also serves to isolate her in the process; Hina does not want to avoid people; she simply feels she must. There is a solution, of course; find a way to safely dispose of the misfortune, but she has yet to find it. This is her primary goal in attending the Institute; once she can do that, she feels, she can live an ordinary life.

Finally, she is a complete pacifist (she's less so in Canon, but danmaku fights are inherently nonlethal anyway). She just hasn't the heart to harm others, and, thanks to being somewhat sheltered, she can't really understand why mutant/human relations are so shoddy. If confronted with violence, Hina will either negotiate or flee (where her miasma actually helps in a way; it's hard to chase after someone when you keep tripping over every random crack in the pavement). Having lived homeless for several years, she is surprisingly adept at stealing food and convincingly lying, though she only does it when she feels the need. Lying in particular is a defensive mechanism; she uses it to hide her crushing loneliness and does her best to convince both others and herself that everything is fine. As an aside, this actually makes her an excellent confident, as she is very good at keeping secrets and maintaining a cheerful poker face.

POWERS/ABILITIES: Hina can 'manipulate misfortune', which she uses to draw misfortune away from others and towards herself. This can be seen as imparting good luck (by virtue of removing bad luck), but there are a few crucial differences and, importantly, side effects. Misfortune itself is a little vague, making describing how it works a little awkward, but this is the interpretation I'm going off:

Misfortune is basically the skewing of probability towards an undesirable result. It does not interfere with skills in any way; a man who can hit a target with a bow and arrow 99% of the time will still be able to do so, but under Hina's misfortune random mishaps would occur that would screw things up. The bowstring that should have had a low chance of breaking would pick that moment to snap, the floorboards that should be completely sturdy most of the time would pick that moment to break or shift underfoot. Basically it's little, random things that aren't really anyone's fault; Hina's misfortune just makes them more likely. When these bad events occur, the misfortune is spent. When good events occur, misfortune builds up. It's a balance; one that Hina can tip.

To draw misfortune directly from one person to herself (the only thing she has ever used her power for), Hina needs a clear picture of where that person is right now and what they are doing. To cut a long story short, if she can see them clearly, she can withdraw misfortune. This also applies to video, as long as it's live and Hina has a good idea of their location, though she has an effective range of, say, around 10km. Something like text or audio however would be insufficient unless she was very familiar with both the area and the person in question.

On a more general level, Hina also tends to draw in misfortune passively. This is slower, and in a smaller radius than when she does it consciously. She is always doing this, even when asleep or unconscious.

The effects of having your misfortune drawn away by Hina is somewhat akin to a low-level good luck charm; the net effect is an absence of bad luck, meaning less things will go badly for you. This is not quite the same as an increase in good luck; for example, under Hina's power, you are no more likely to win the lottery but you are a lot less likely to accidentally lose your ticket or drop it in a puddle.

The misfortune Hina withdraws however does not go away. It is collected about herself and stays with her, forming a sort of invisible miasma, and can indiscriminately strike anyone who gets too close. Hina cannot control this; she has literally stored up far too much for her to be able to hold it all in, so it leaks out into the area around her. Generally, it sticks close to her, but if she stays in one place for an extended period of time, it can become 'cursed'.

The miasma formed of all of Hina's withdrawn misfortune isn't visible, but even an ordinary person would quickly get the impression that Hina and her haunts are somehow a bad omen (though not through video or pictures). It never affects her personally, just anyone who wanders into it; they will 'collect' some of the misfortune she's withdrawn, increasing their bad luck. How much and the effects of this vary, along with the curse's duration (which is my way of saying 'it's up to the affected player'), but will generally result in a lot of minor mishaps, stupid mistakes and things going randomly and improbably wrong for a day or two. Despite Hina's best efforts, she is unable to contain or pull back the misfortune caused by wandering into her miasma.

There are a few areas of potential expansion for Hina's ability:
>> Transferring misfortune from one person to another (probably using herself as a relay).
>> Actually manipulating the miasma; currently it is beyond her control; she is only trying to contain it. For instance, she could try to dispose of it safely by storing it in inanimate objects.
>> Greater range.
>> Improvements in miasma containment.
>> Ability to also withdraw misfortune caused by contact with the miasma.

Generally, it can be assumed Hina is making life easier on campus by reducing accidents, but it's not something that's terribly obvious or particularly needs to be mentioned. The miasma only affects people who are very close by; generally, within a few feet, and again only causes accidents - ie if someone gets hurt because they make a bad decision, that's their own fault. It basically just skews probability to favour bad results. She cannot create or destroy misfortune, just move it around.

She can also spin a lot without getting dizzy, though that might just be practise.

Having lived her most recent years homeless and on the streets, and before that in a rural village, Hina is a little backwards; she's behind on the times, mostly uneducated (she can read Japanese, struggles with writing English and can perform basic logic and maths, but that's as far as it goes) and generally unaware of human-mutant affairs and culture in general, including the wonders of modern technology; she knows what a TV is thanks to having seen them in store fronts, but wouldn't have the first clue how to use one and god help you if you need her to use a computer.

AU HISTORY:
Hina grew up in a rural village in Japan, with her power starting to manifest at a very early age. She was raised by loving parents who taught her to be a good person, and she began withdrawing misfortune long before she actually realised what she was doing, or what any of it meant, beyond the knowledge that doing so made people happier.

Though at first she was popular, over time her stored miasma grew to the point of being detectable. It became known that Hina was a 'cursed child', as her stored misfortune started bringing her family to ruin both physically (because of frequent accidents) and financially (same), and anyone who interacted with her suffered the same bad luck. She began to avoid people. Exorcisms did nothing; eventually, it was concluded that she was a witch, and she was thrown out of her village at the age of 12. She wandered aimlessly for a while until she found a road, where someone picked her up and took her to the police station in the nearest city.

Discovering that her family hadn't even reported her missing, Hina lied and claimed to be an orphan, and consequently was sent to an orphanage in a nearby city. An orphanage she promptly ran away from before the same thing could occur.

Growing more accustomed to her power and its workings, she resolved not to stay in one place; she kept moving, withdrawing misfortune and trying to 'dump' it in abandoned places or areas outside of the city. She took charity when she could get it, and stole food when she could not. She got used to living on her own, and came to accept it; due to her cursed air, even criminals preferred to avoid her, feeling she wasn't worth the trouble.

She met Hatate when her friend was still learning to fly; the would-be reporter found her floating down a river after an accident. It was Hatate who identified Hina as a mutant and told her about the Institute; Hina is attending both to follow her friend's footsteps and to get her own answers for what to do with her ability.

Of course, actually getting to the Institute for her was easier said than done; being homeless and lacking in both money and a passport, it took her some time to get smuggled into the country by stowing away on a passenger ship. She has no history or documentation; she showed up as a runaway.

SAMPLE
1ST PERSON SAMPLE:
Can be found here!

THIRD PERSON SAMPLE:

Spin spin spin. Wheels of fortune, wheels of fate, roulette, luck just seemed to be tied closely with the art of spinning. Really, she wasn't sure why she liked doing it so much and in all honesty it probably wasn't even relevant but... well, she just liked doing it. It was fun. Maybe it was like dancing; she'd never really had the opportunity to learn and anyone who picked her for a partner had poor judgement and worse fortune.

So maybe it was just a good solo activity. That made sense. It kept her active and busy on her feet at least. Siphoning off misfortune wasn't exactly a tiring task; it was almost as natural as breathing by this point. So spinning was just something to do. That and it evoked images of whirlpools which was probably apt. There was something hypnotic about spirals.

...Of course, there were other things that could occupy her time. That endlessly fun dance of trying to find food and shelter when people had even more cause to be wary of you beyond being stuck out on the street. Though it did mean everyone kept their distance. There was a safety in that, at least. She wasn't that naive. But spinning was actually enjoyable. Lose the world in a whirl, for just a little while.

So Hina spun. Spun spun spun.