CHARACTERName: Chantou Rou (Chan-toe Row)
Age: 19, born 12th of Neige
Species and Gender: Female Orchid Mantis Faunus
Symbol: Jeep Tire w/ an orchid flower blooming in the center
Occupation: 1st Year Beacon Student, Aeriel Silks Dancer
Appearance: Chantou is a 5’5” young woman, weighing approximately 130 lbs. Her appearance is lean and mean, a taunt body showing off smooth limbs with just enough muscle definition. 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 dark pink, their pretty appearance deceptively hiding their razor-sharp nature. Chantou's capable of using them as improvisational weapons, as they can normally pierce cloth, skin, and most fragile plastics, but are useless against anything harder. She's not the biggest fan of using them as weapons however, as they are capable of breaking off. Thankfully, Chantou's capable of making these spines lay flat along her arms - pricking any long-sleeved clothing she wears would be pretty obnoxious. Chantou also possess a pair of green-gold compound eyes, which thankfully light alongside sensing movement and having depth vision.
Chantou’s sense of fashion can only be described as easy and lose. The woman favors crop tops and low-slung cargo 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. She’s almost never seen without a large, chunky keychain attached to her belt via a chain. It’s exact contents include the keys to Babygirl, a whistle and a miniature can of pepperspray, some small plush toy keychains, and a picture of her and her mother in a small picture frame. It’s as exactly as loud and jangly as one would imagine, and Chantou’s constantly playing with it. Thankfully, her battle outfit is thankfully more practical than her everyday dress, composed of a twin-tailed jacket over a black undershirt, secured by a black belt with her symbol as the buckle around her middle, which she carries both scabbards for her swords from. She wears black pants underneath, with knee-high combat boots that she usually tucks a butterfly knife into
History: Teenagers will be irresponsible cretins until the end of time, and Chantou Rou’s conception lives to prove that. The result two drunk teenagers fumbling around in the bathroom of a party one fateful spring night, Aoi Rou was dumped by her boyfriend and abandoned by her family after the discovery of her pregnancy, 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, turned to the infamous Mistralian underground to find a profession. Working as a prostitute was far from her first choice, but desperation will drive a person to extreme lengths - especially a pregnant teenager with nowhere else to turn. 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 Aoi’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. Akari could barely scrape together enough money to feed herself and her daughter monthly on top of affording their shitty apartment, so hiring any sort of professional childcare was out of the question. With a lack of places to go, Chantou would be brought to Akari’s workplace with her, left in the staff’s break room while her mother serviced clients. Interestingly, she was never an annoyance to the staff - the mistress who ran the place had a soft spot once learning of Akari’s situation, 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 once her popularity grew amongst clients and she started bringing in a better income, she immediately signed her daughter up for local dance and gymnastic classes.
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. The bullying would continue onwards during after school, at gymnastic tournaments and dance recitals - but this time, it was the adults that looked down on both Chantou and her mother. Akari was never welcomed within the parent’s circles, and the other children would only copy their parent’s behavior by shunning and teasing Chantou. Chantou initially flinched with each name she got called, left to stare on sadly as she was left out by her former friends. But Chantou wouldn’t let them destroy her passions - she already knew life was hard for her mother, they wouldn’t get to make it any worse. She figured if they wanted a reaction out of her, she wouldn’t give them one - and her the foundation for her disconnected, nonchalant shell was set. If she was going to be shunned because of who she was, of who her mother was, she’d prove them all wrong - by being the best dancer in the class, the girl on top of the podium at every competition. They’d never be able to deny her, as long as she was the best. Admittedly, these decisions didn’t make her any more popular than she already was, but they did give the growing girl something she desperately needed in her own life - control, and to a degree, independence.
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.
Even if the brothel was a safe haven for Chantou, it was still a brothel - a place where woman sold their bodies for money. 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 and hurt the women, trying 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 a man assaulting her. 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 clerk at a local auto salvage and repair joint - not a bad job for a high school student. While the 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 out on the grounds
Chantou initially faced the same problems she did in dance or gymnastics. She was disregarded, shunned, and even laughed at by fellow male apprentices and the senior staff -
“See the cute little girl trying to learn cars! How adorable! Let me help you fix that sweetie, you’ll never be able to understand that.” Even if Chantou’s nonchalant exterior protected her from the worse of their verbal assaults, lacking ammunition, she still had a problem: she lacked respect. So she approached it the only way she knew how - becoming the best. She threw herself headfirst into her work, taking advantage of every available opportunity. She learned faster than any other apprentice, diagnosed problems and fixed them before the rest could catch up. She modeled herself after the older foreman's guff, blunt attitudes, and wouldn't take anybody's shit - she even picked up their habitual smoking to add to the persona. Eventually, she became one of the yard’s top apprentices, to the point she was offered a full-time apprenticeship. Chantou was 17 by then, and the offer was more appealing to her than what remained of her academic career - and had dropped out just half a year shy of graduation.
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. Her role as an apprentice paid well, more than her work at the brothel, to the point she was able to start putting away money alongside helping to a less-shitty apartment with her mother. She had a pet project in repairing her Jeep, spending most of her spare money on parts necessary to get it running again. She pampered the corpse of the car to the point it was nicknamed “Babygirl” by the other apprentices, to Chantou’s amusement. Unfortunately the nickname stuck, but Chantou didn’t mind - the important part was that life was finally looking up for the Rou family for the first time in nearly 18 years. They’d managed to find happiness again, out of their mess of a lifestyle.
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. They’d be relying on Chantou’s salary alone to stay afloat for awhile. The brothel considered their women self-employed professionals, so they didn’t offer any support in sueing the man - and the Rou family didn’t have enough money to hire an attorney to press charges. Akari, amazingly, wasn’t deterred - all she wanted to do was go back to work and start contributing to the family’s monetary pool again. The brothel’s mistress assured her she’d have a place when she returned thanks to her popularity, but until then, they’d need to stay afloat on an apprentice’s salary.
Chantou got 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 at dance, gymnastics, in the salvage yard - everywhere and everything was fair game for ridicule.
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.. She’d turned her back on Mistral at that point - the city, with its 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 goes joyriding or some other crazy stunt with reckless abandon. 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. Furthermore, growing up in a brothel has severely warped Chantou’s views of sex and romantic relationships. Sex a simply a tool, in exchange of x you’ll get y. She’s also extremely hesitant about romantic relationships, or any relationships at all - it was a teenage relationship that screwed over her mother, and she’ll do anything to prevent what her mother became. These deep-rooted relationship problems have afflicted Chantou her whole life, and they’re not likely to change anytime soon - she should honestly probably get good at making regular friends, first.
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, it’s women and 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 ironically fairly 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. On top of working on her car or dancing, Chantou’s passions include practicing her dexterity via butterfly knives, joyriding, and occcaisal acts of graffiti - she’s a surprisingly good artist.
Aura and Semblance: Chantou’s aura is a
petal pink, and is fairly large for someone her age. A lifetime of tumbling through gymnastics and dance has inadvertently trained her aura to help her bounce back from strikes that would leave most people winded, and she’s able to focus her aura to help reduce incoming damage, as long as the thought is in her mind. Unfortunately however, she's yet to discover the nature of her semblance.
I haven't decided on a semblance yet - it'll be added in later as her character develops.
Combat Behavior: Growing up in a dangerous neighborhood of Mistral, Chantou’s fighting style is a mixture of over a decade of dance and gymnastic classes, combined with practical self-defense and tricks she’s picked up from observing (and participating in) several street fights. Acting as a close and mid-range skirmisher, her best work is done when playing as a defensive fighter, running circles around her enemies and taking advantage of both the ranged capabilities of her pistols, or her whips. She’s a patient fighter as well, and isn’t afraid to draw back and wait out her opponent - finding the perfect moment to strike to do maximum damage is much more important that an all-out barrage. Finally, there’s the fact that her unshakable poker face has left her pretty much immune to all battlefield taunts - only a few choice insults would get her angry enough to lash out and take unnecessary risks.
Chantou still has a far range of weaknesses however, and is still figuring out the best way to cover them. She’s lightweight and fairly small in comparison to many, making her susceptible to stronger opponents - especially if they try to turn the match into a slugfest. Working with pistols and whips nails her as a close-range fighter (mid-range at best), and anybody in possession of a sniper rifle or being capable of other long-distance attacks pose a definite threat, especially if she’s unable to maneuver around the battlefield. And while independance does let her hold her own as a fighter, her lack of trust in others puts her at odds with any team she would be working with - cooperation is not her strong suit, especially if someone is in-her-face about it.
WEAPONName: “I dunno, they’re just whip-sword things? Why does everything need a name?”
Primary Form: A lightweight pair of chain whips, composed of individual metal segments. These metal metal segments are double-bladed and sharpened to a point, providing Chantou with a dangerous cutting edge when flicked. Each whip has a sturdy metal half-a-foot handle wrapped in leather to provide a better grip; and can be loaded with dust-based by popping open a hatch in the base of the handle. While both whips normally have a length of 6 feet, thanks to an internal extendable mechanism, the whips are capable of stretching up to 12 feet when lashed. By flicking a switch on the handle of the whips, the internal extending mechanism is able to essentially “reel” into the individual metal segments of each whip. This causes them to draw together until the length of the whip is reduced to three feet, where the individual metal segments will then “lock” together to provide Chantou with a twin pair of double-bladed short swords.
Secondary Form: By sheathing both swords in their respective scabbards and flicking a switch on the outside of either, the handles of either sword can detach from the blades, leaving them locked inside their scabbards. The individual handles then can become a twin pair of semi-automatic pistols, capable of holding 7 rounds each before needing to be reloaded. Chantou carries spare ammunition magazines on the back of her belt.
Tertiary Form: Chantou prefers to revert both whips to their secondary form in order to transport them, sheathing both in scabbards that are attached to either side of her belt.
Dust Functions: Both whips can utilize a wide variety of dust functions by loading in a cartridge into the handle via a small hatch in the hilt of each weapon. The pistols can be loaded with dust-tipped bullets, but that’s the limit of their dust functions.
Ice Dust: Causes the whip’s blade to take on a frost-like sheen, freezes limbs on contact.
Fire Dust: Light the length of both whips on fire, burns opponents on contact (and may automatically cauterize wounds cause by the blades).
Lighting Dust: Causes the blades to become electrocuted, discharges upon contact.
Wind Dust: Allows the whips to create large gusts of wind upon being “snapped” in order to blow back opponents
Earth Dust: Gives the whip’s blade a dirty covering, can create sandstorm-like clouds when whipped around.
Kinetic: Increasing the strength of the whip’s blows.
Name: Razor's Edge
Primary Form: A lightweight fingerless glove with a thick cuff, Razor's Edge is a wrist-mounted grappling dart and reel with an effective distance of 150 meters. Usually worn on Chantou's right hand, the dart contains an especially potent gravity dust crystal, that activates on contact with any surface after hitting it "any harder then a gentle whack," in Chantou's words. The dart will then stay embedded for a maximum of 30 seconds before falling away - though it will stay embedded in something longer if it physically inserted itself. The cable itself is capable of holding up to 250lbs, so this could include Chantou herself and one other relatively-small person.
History: Commissioned by Chantou from a professional weaponsmith upon her decision to attend Beacon, Chantou opted for weaponry that would fit well with her dance-like fighting style, but is easy to use - at least, in theory.
OTHERName: Babygirl
Description: Chantou’s pet project, a beat-up old Jeep she’s managed to bring back from the brink of death. With a tacky tigerprint paint job, leather seats that’ve been repaired via Chantou’s clumsy sewing or liberal application of duct tape, and a motor that roars like an Ursa, it honestly looks like it could fall apart at any moment - and Chantou wouldn’t have it any other way. She’d had some new additions as well via Chantou’s mechanical skills, including an updated stereo system, inbuilt cigarette lighter and ashtray, and more cup holders. The Jeep is built somewhat like a tank, and isn’t prone to getting scratched or crumpling easy - what helped it survive its initial destruction, actually - and can achieve speeds up to 120 mph, though the frame will feel like it might rattle apart. Chantou’s very fond of joyriding. The truck of the Jeep has an ever-present cooler stocked to the brim with cheap beer and junk food, a milk crate filled with spray paint cans, and a mechanic’s toolkit - something Chantou will never go without, if she can avoid it.