CHARACTER
Name: Chantou Rou (Chan-two Row)
Age: 19, born 12th of Neige
Species and Gender: Female Orchid Mantis Faunus
Symbol: Sample Text
Occupation: 1st Year Beacon Student, Aeriel Silks Dancer
Appearance: Chantou 5’5” young woman, weighing approximately 130 lbs. Her appearance is lean and mean, a taunt body showing off lean muscle. Her skin is a dusty brown, dotted with slightly darker freckles across the bridge of her nose. A heart-shaped face and thick lips are well-accompanied by bleached-blond hair, it’s original dark black visible in the roots that she hasn’t bothered to dye again. Her hair is usually held back in a twin pair of space buns, parted down the middle, with any remaining bangs brushed to the side.
The most notable parts of Chantou’s appearance are the animalistic traits she’s inherited in the form of the spines along her arms, and her eyes. Being related to an orchid mantis has granted the young woman spines along the outside of her forearm, from wrist to elbow. These spines are a pale pink, their pretty appearance deceptively hiding their razor-sharp nature. Like most insects, Chantou has gold-green compound eyes in the place of her regular eyes. As these types of eyes only detect movement and have depth vision, Chantou possess three more eyes along the bridge of her forehead that detect light. These eyes are the same color as her skin and don’t have the same range of movement that regular eyes do, so they’re usually interpreted as a birthmark or makeup at first glance.
Chantou’s sense of fashion can only be described as easy and lose. The woman favors crop tops and low-slung khaki pants that leave her midriff bare, tucked into well-worn combat boots. She’s a fan of chunky, unusual jewelry, usually wearing hoop earrings alongside other large necklaces and bracelets. Her outfit is normally accompanied by a petal-pink sportsman’s jacket with white highlights and worn cuffs. Her battle outfit is thankfully more practical, composed of a twin-tailed jacket that fades from maroon to white, with a black belt around her middle. The belt buckle is in the form of her symbol, and underneath she wears black pants with knee-high combat boots.
History: Teenagers will be irresponsible cretins until the end of time, and Chantou Rou’s conception lives to prove that. The result two drunk faunus teenagers fumbling around in the bathroom of a party one fateful spring night, Akari Rou was dumped by her boyfriend and abandoned by her family after the discovery of her family, cast out into the streets with nothing but her name and the set of clothes on her back. Desperate for work, the young woman did everything in her power to try to find work and become independent, but nobody wants to hire a pregnant teenager - and eventually in a fit of desperation, the dragonfly faunus turned to the Mistralian underground to find a profession. A brothel was far from her first choice, but desperation with drive a person anywhere. Chantou was brought into the world nine months later by a back-alley medic, screaming her little lungs out. Despite her exhaustion, the sound was music to Akari’s ears - and the first glimpse of her odd-eyed child confirmed love at first sight for the dragonfly faunus. Abandoned by everyone that ever cared for her, Akari made a promise then and there, to raise her daughter to the best of her ability.
Chantou Rou was the daughter of a prostitute. With a lack of trustworthy childcare services available, Chantou would be brought to Akari’s workplace with her, left in the staff’s break room or a spare bedroom while her mother serviced clients. Interestingly, she was never an annoyance to the staff - the mistress who ran the place had a soft spot for Akari as one of her best girls, and the rest of the women that attended found the presence of a child a refreshing change. Chantou was practically raised by an entire commune of women, both human and faunus, who’d take time out of their day to visit the little bundle of sunshine in the break room that’d be building towers out of coffee creamers or scribbling pictures with pens stolen from the brothel’s front desk. To Chantou, there was nothing wrong or dirty about these women - they were just cool adults, with cool adult professions! And they were so nice to her! Who couldn’t love them? Chantou admired their grace and style, the way they could be effortlessly beautiful - and she couldn’t help but beg her mother to help her grow up to be like the women she so admired.
That got a firm no from Akari, but she did enroll her daughter in local gymnastic and ballet classes the next day. To little Chantou, it was the next best thing.
As Chantou aged, she began to attend the local primary school. Her mother’s profession didn’t matter to children when they were five, six, seven - Chantou was just a cool kid with pretty eyes who got to walk by herself to her Mom’s workplace after school. As the years crept onwards though, Chantou slowly began to realize the nature of her mother’s job - and more importantly, so did her classmates. The once-popular child was at ignored by her classmates, then slowly shunned - and then the bitter words started flying, calling a bug, a beetle, or a worthless insect. Chantou would flinch with each new name, which only seemed to spur the bullies on further - until she began to train herself not to react. Even if she was still shunned by her peers, the bitter words stopped with the lack of a reaction. Even if it meant hiding her emotions from the world, it let Chantou get by unbothered.
Despite the perception of her peers, Chantou would still go to her mother’s brothel everyday after school. It’d remained a safe place for her through all those years, a place that was more of a home than her shitty apartment with her mother - even with the changes in staff as girls came and went. As she aged, the brothel’s mistress had started to assign her jobs - refilling rooms with fresh supplies and keeping track of the booking numbers. Not only was this in a place where she was comfortable, but the mistress paid her a minimum wage as well - allowing Chantou to contribute to their rent outside their mother as the sole income provider, and letting the Rou family breathe a little easier. Her work at the brothel was important - it was an escape from harsh school life, and it helped provide for her family.
Even if the brothel was a safe haven for Chantou, it was still a brothel. The clientele they attracted were from all walks of life, from truck drivers to rich men from old families, looking for escape in a quick fuck. While the mistress did her best to screen the clients, there were still the dangerous ones - who’d harass the women and hurt them, and try to get more than what they initially payed for. The brothel had an usher, but he always couldn’t be there - there were times when a woman’s screams lasted too long before they managed to burst into the room and intercept the man assaulting individual workers. There were a times when Akari came home with bruises - on her neck, her thighs, bite marks and scratch marks. Even if she did her best to hide them, Chantou saw what men did to her mother, and slowly grew to despise the clientele of the brothel, even if she loved the people there. It was an Atlesian officer visiting Mistral who’d visited the brothel, and the mistress had all the girls line up so he could pick one out. Chantou was 15, working behind the counter that day, running numbers and checking what supplies they’d need to order the next day. He’d glanced over all the women, before his eyes focused on her - and with a self-satisfied sneer, he’d informed the mistress he’d made his choice. She did try to stop him, but he had her by the arm, and was dragging the small woman towards the back room before anybody could do anything about it - and like any good mother, a furious Akari had thrown herself at him. He’d dropped Chantou to intercept the oncoming attack, but resultantly pinned her mom to the wall by the throat. It’d taken three woman and the brothel’s Mistress to pry him off Akari, and they’d needed to call in the usher from outside on the street to successfully throw him out, banning him for life.
Chantou quit working at the brothel that day.
Chantou was done. Her entire life, she’d seen women under the control of men - her mother’s livelihood depended on how nice they’d decide to be. Their family’s income - their place to live - depended on if she stayed popular enough to draw clients in. As Chantou stormed from the brothel, she swore then and there she’d never rely on anybody else - she’d be independent, self-sufficient, and most importantly, always have her pride. She’d never let that be taken away from her.
Her mother had agreed sign her up to self-defense classes that day, on top of the dance and gymnastic classes she’d been taking for years.
Chantou was out of work for the next couple of years until age sixteen. She’d manage to put together a decent-looking resume, and with the help of the brothel’s mistress calling in a few favors, she’d managed to secure a job serving as a secretary at a local auto salvage joint - not a bad job for a high school student. While behind-the-desk work was boring, even if it payed decently, Chantou would spend the day staring out at the men working in the shop, working independently to fix all matters of problems with cars. Not only were their individual talents something to be envied, taking care of such major mechanical problems all by themselves, but Chantou herself became taken with the vehicles they fixes. It wasn’t long until she asked if it was possible to sign on as an apprentice, and soon enough she moved from behind the secretary’s desk to working on the floor.
Chantou picked up auto repair rebuilding surprisingly quickly - even if she didn’t excel academically, putting everything she had into achieving the same level of skill that the other workers did as quickly as possible did achieve results. It helped that she’d fallen in love with the cars and machines themselves as well, full of moving parts that all worked in tandem to create something beautiful - something like her dances, she reckoned. She spent a long time getting overestimated and ragged on by other male apprentices and and even some of the senior staff, expecting her to burn out within a month - but she’d simply pulled on the same emotionless “you don’t bother me” mask she’d worn throughout primary school. Her habitual smoking had started with accepting a cigarette from a senior staff member, before she started buying them herself on the down-low - and it wasn’t long before she started joining the regular smoking crowd at the auto shop, and picked up the habit of blowing cigarette smoke into the face of anybody who didn’t understand she didn’t want to waste her time with them.
One late night in the yard, the corpse of a stripped-up Jeep was dragged into the yard. Some rich Mistralian kid had taken his father’s car joyriding, and rather than attempting to fix the expensive piece, he’d just chosen to discard it. Chantou had been working late that night when she’d caught sight of the beat-up Jeep, with it’s tacky tiger-print finish and (mostly) intact leather seating - and had immediately fallen in love. She’d put her claim on the vehicle that night, paying full price for it up front and had it dragged into a more private corner of the yard, marking it off as rightfully hers.
The next two years passed in a blur to Chantou. Opting to eventually drop out of school so she could work full-time at the auto-salvage yard, Chantou took up a full-time position as a mechanic, working on repairing her Jeep in her spare time. It took nearly a year for Chantou to acquire all the parts to repair the poor thing, but she’d eventually managed to get it up and running again. She was earning above minimum wage, she’d managed to repair her car to get it up and running - she’d and her mother had even managed to move from a shitty apartment to a less-shitty apartment! Life was looking up for the Rou family, for the first time in nearly 18 years.
And then a client broke her mother’s arm in a fit of violence.
Akari was obviously out of the job for at least 10 weeks - that was nearly three weeks. They’d be relying on Chantou’s salary alone to stay afloat for awhile. Akari, amazingly, wasn’t deterred - all she wanted to do was go back to work.
But Chantou? Chantou was angry.
She’d seen women get pushed around her entire life. She’d seen her mother get pushed around her entire life. She’d been pushed around her entire life, not only in school but in the salvage yard.
Chantou was done.
Completely and utterly done with having her pride stripped from her, from her mother, from the women that’d cared for her so deeply throughout her childhood. Chantou needed find something that’d earn her respect from everybody, whether they wanted to respect her or not.
And who else was more respected than hunters?
Chantou had dropped out of school, but she had a solid job and a steady paycheck. She’d had her private fund for repairing her jeep, and there was still money left over in that account - it was more than enough to commission a professional weaponsmith to forge her a twin pair of swords. She’d turned her back on Mistral at that point - the city, with it’s deep-rooted underground, was lost to her at that point. She’d needed a new horizon, and a fresh start. She’d chosen Beacon Academy in the far-off City of Vale, and traveled across the world in order to take the entry exam - a year older than any other first year, but understandable given her circumstances. With nearly 14 years of gymnastics and dance behind her combined with self-defense classes, the live combat and sparring parts of the entry exam wasn’t hard to pass - and she’d only managed to squeak through the academic portion with an extreme amount of concentrated cramming. Chantou Rou is coming into Beacon blazing - it’s up to the other students if they’ll be able to handle her heat.
Personality: At first glance, Chantou Rou is your classic cool kid. With her eyes usually hidden behind a pair of mirror sunglasses and sporting a devil-may-care attitude, her cool and collected exterior is nearly-impossible to surprise or shatter. This devil-may-care attitude is accompanied by the world’s bluntest approach to life possible and an absolute disregard of tact - Chantous says what she wants, whenever she wants, and nobody is going to stop her, especially if you urge her to hold her tongue. The only time you’ll see this attitude change is when she’s engaging the adrenaline junkie that lurks right beneath her chilled surface, whooping loudly with a wide grin on her face as she speeds down a highway or jumps off something tall with no regards to her safety. Chantou has approximately two modes: slow n’ easy, or fast n’ furious, and switching between the two of them happens as easily as flicking a switch. With her lackadaisical dressing style, usually chomping on gum or smoking a cigarette, Chantou’s the living stereotype of a pop-punk bad girl - and revels in it.
However, Chantou’s reckless, disregarding attitude hides some unfortunate secrets. Her devil-may-care styles aren’t a front, as being growing up the daughter of a prostitute in an especially-seedy part of Mistral toughens you to anything else shocking in life - but it doubles as a protective front, used to conceal anxiety-ridden teenager who’s terrified of becoming her mother. The reckless attitude and disregard for her health is helped used to compensate any common sense that might try to listen to the anxieties in her head, burying them beneath the roar of tires on asphalt or the smoke of her cigarettes.
Despite her unhealthy habits and blunt tactics, Chantou does have some positive attributes. Growing up a freaky-eyed faunus in an environment where men would regularly take advantage of the women around her has given her an eagle’s eye when it comes to danger and abuse - she can recognize almost any endangering situation with near-immediate clarity, constantly having her guard raised in order to protect herself. This protective, street-smart attitude lends itself to any women, children, and teenagers her age around her, not wanting them to end up in the same situations she dealt with as a child. She’s naturally distrustful of most grown men as a result, especially human men - in her mind, faunus always come first. This protective attitude will extend itself to anybody who needs an ear, the offer of a cigarette and maybe some gum - she’s endlessly patient when helping others with their problems, and her blunt approach to literally everything has the patent ability to cut straight through a person’s bullshit to the source of their problems. Even if it’s not careful words, they’re truthful - and she prides herself on this, not giving people what they want to hear but what they need to hear. Telling anything but the truth in Chantou’s mind is as bad as treason, and while she’ll respect secrets, she’s not above hauling out a person’s dirty laundry for themselves (and the world) to see. This protective, hyperfocused side of her can be also be seen in her passions, whether it’s in the affection she approaches working on her old jeep with, to the graceful movements of her aerial trapeze. She usually enjoys burying herself in her hobbies, as they help keep her mind off the worst of things in a healthier way than her normal approach, and as a result, what she creates when she dances or works with mechanics - she does with both pride and skill.
Aura and Semblance: Chantou’s aura is a petal pink, and is approximately average for someone her age. She has excellent danger sense and is capable of reducing incoming damage, but only through extreme concentration.
Chantou’s semblance is “Spirit Bomb.” Anywhere within a 20 meter radius, Chantou is able to place a glyph that essentially acts as a concussive mine, triggered by any sort of contact with the glyph - whether it’s ally or opponent, grimm or inanimate object. The glyphs appear as a pale-pink circle circle with a diameter of a foot when placed, in a pale-pink that’s nearly invisible to the eye. They create a sphere-shaped explosion with a diameter of 2 meters when triggered, sending anything within its radius flying. Chantou doesn’t need to make physical contact with a surface to place mine, and they can stick to any surface provided there’s room. Anything that makes contact with the glyph will normally be sent flying a distance of 5 meters at max.
Chantou’s Spirit Bombs have an extremely versatile range of dust functions. In order to create a dust-based spirit bomb, Chantou needs to make physical contact with the ground via either her hand or her whip(s) in order to place it. The glyph will then take on the color of the dust it corresponds to.
Ice Dust: Freezes the object or extremity of an opponent in contact with the glyph to the ground.
Water Dust: Creates a large steam cloud with a radius of approximately 15 meters upon detonation
Fire Dust: Expands the diameter of the spirit bomb to three meters, creating a fire-based explosion in order to deal more damage.
Lightning Dust: Creates a sphere-shaped electrical field upon detonation with a diameter of 10 meters, shocking anybody within its vicinity (including Chantou herself)
Wind Dust: Creates a massive updraft upon detonation, lasting for five seconds.
Earth Dust: Creates a sandstorm-like blast upon detonation, covering an area of approximately 10 meters
Kinetic Dust: Increases both the force and the diameter of the concussive blast to 10 meters, guaranteed to send anything within its vicinity flying up to 50 meters.
Combat Behavior: Sample Text
WEAPON
Name: Sample Text
Primary Form: Sample Text
Secondary Form: Sample Text
Tertiary Form: Sample Text
Dust Functions: Sample Text
History: Sample Text
Topic: Chantou Rou (Read 1532 times)