414 Posts
0 EP
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17 Years
Female
"Halo"
Student-Rank Quirk:
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Post by Emi Ryoko Tachibana on Dec 21, 2018 19:48:18 GMT -4
The number of students willing to put themselves before the camera was surprisingly rare. It was a stupid idea, in Emi's eyes. They were training to be heroes. Professional heroes, at that. None of the heroes she knew had managed to hide from journalists, drones and news stations (though if they had been successful, it would certainly explain why she'd never heard of them).
Then again, it was all too easy for her to think that. She'd made being the apple of the camera's eye her job for almost half her life and had gone years without fearing the lens. It was a little harder for her to recall and comprehend the nerves that came with knowing your every move was about to be recorded and shared with the world. Perhaps that was why she saw no issue with training her DSLR’s focus on her one-time listener.
“Just hold still for a few seconds…” A steady hand on the camera’s bulk kept Rowan in frame, while the other zoomed in on her face. A few seconds of that, and then she shuffled around her model, capturing her figure from a few different angles. “Alright. Now, strike a pose, if you feel like it!” She backpedalled away to get a wide angle shot of the girl. It was a lot more than she had done for any other student thus far, but Emi had good reasons to go the extra mile for her muse.
For one, the girl had actually obliged when the idea of a vlog came up. In a school of teenagers supposedly preparing to face the world as role models and paragons, a willing volunteer was startlingly rare. Therefore, Emi had to do her best for the girl – not just to reward her proactivity, but to show the rest of the student body that joining her schemes could only do good things for them. Through Emi’s vision, the student would become a star.
The other reason, of course, was that Emi was getting bored. She hadn’t had a chance to stretch her metaphorical cinematography legs in a while, and it showed on her face. An eager grin had plastered itself on her face, and while she was usually an energetic girl, her movements around Rowan had an added spring to them. At least, until she stood up straight and realised how she must have looked. Her eyes danced around the hall – the same one they had first met in – before finding the girl again.
She coughed, cleared her throat and continued.
“Alright, I’m going to start rolling in a second. Again, don’t stress it too much. Be yourself, say whatever you want. If you flub a line or say something a bit too wild, I can edit it out after. Oh, and try to keep a conversation going. All the better for the viewers, you know?” As she spoke, she turned her back to the girl, pointing the camera on herself to find the best angle. The usual dressing up of her face aside, Emi had found a special outfit for the occasion. Perhaps it was her idea of a hero’s outfit, or maybe she was trying extra hard to cosplay as a chef. Hopefully nobody would notice it’s origins – the protagonist of a magical girl show that might have run when her grandmother was a child.
Without any further warning, she hit the button. A grin made itself known on her face, and she was off. “I’m baaaaack! It’s been a little while, but I think you’ll forgive me for taking a break after that last set of videos. Anyway, I promised something more light-hearted this time around, and I also noticed that a lot of viewers didn’t really get life with a quirk, especially not for somebody training to be a pro. So, that’s what this vlog’s going to be all about: quirk practice and creativity! But that’s a lot to cover, and I couldn’t do it all alone. So! Please welcome-“ She ducked out of the shot; her hand kept the camera in the same spot, revealing the girl behind her:
“Rowan!”
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1,072 Posts
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Post by Rowan Sakamoto on Dec 22, 2018 19:32:35 GMT -4
 | ◀ | The heart is a heavy burden ❤ Rowan took a deep breath when Emi told her to hold still. Now she figured Emi did not mean for her to stop breathing but it was why she felt so nervous in the first place. Why again did she agree with this? There were a lot of reasons why, first of all, she had been very frustrated by the idea what the articles had written about the U.A. students and Rowan was one of them, thank god not much was written about her. The whole essential thing was that she had a past where people hated her because of her quirk, not specifically because she had a quirk but for her quirk specific. A burning ability was not the most welcome one. She tried to look at the camera and tried to tell herself that she should not be nervous, but it felt again ridiculous to have volunteered herself, her quirk would make things only worse.
Now since their last talk, Rowan was a lot more self-assured that she wanted to be here, a few talks had helped, a few had not because it made her miss out things that she could not remember. She frowned and her dark eyebrows made it look as if she was angry, she should just relax, Emi would make it okay. She tried to laugh because of the camera and Emi working it out, striking a pose? The only thing she could think of was put her arms up as if she was showing muscles, clenching her hands into fists to show the none existing muscles of her upper arm. "Please don't show this in the vlog." She was at least relaxed now, but for how long? Why she wanted to become a hero? To make it fairer for everyone without a quirk. To show it was not scary and to protect kids in the future from this racist idea.
The only thing that made her nervous still about this vlog was that her face would be on it. The thing was that she was afraid to be recognized and she had asked Emi to not use her surname. She stretched a bit now that she was sure that Emi was still preparing and checked out if she had the pouch with marbles with her and the pockets of her training leggings would be filled with them already for as much as possible so she could show off her quirk. She turned her golden eyes back at Emi when she went on to explain.
She nodded, yes, exactly, that made it easier. It did not matter because it would be edited before that. Emi looked so much better than her but on the other hand, Rowan did not mind her outfit, she looked okay enough. She looked normal, which was what she wanted to depict anyway. She tried to not fumble with her fingers when Emi spoke to the camera or move from one leg onto the other, she would show the world no nerves, they would be made of steel and she would fix it all. Well, a step in the right direction.
Rowan remembered that Emi said she should keep talking and she told herself not to stare at Emi but at the camera and waved, "Hi everyone," okay that was a good one and she should say something more, would it be stupid to repeat her name, no, no it would keep the conversation going. She thought perhaps too much but fast and she tried to smile. She had no idea how nervous she looked. "I am Rowan and I am obviously a first-year student at U.A." Oh wow, that was phrased horribly. "Apart from learning new things at school to help my quirk, I like to do regular stuff, meeting with friends, shopping, reading and playing with my cat." Her eyes shortly went to Emi, "I will show you parts of my quirk today and how it works."
To which she tried to explain her quirk as easily as possible and not go all into the DNA explanation that it needed but clear and quick: that by the touch of her hand she could activate her quirk and speed up the movement of molecules and let them explode with a bit of friction. "It is still safe to hold onto objects or my hand, I really need to put my quirk into action before explosions can happen. Some people forgot that and did not dare to shake my hand when I was a child." She decided to say, they could always cut that out. |
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414 Posts
0 EP
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17 Years
Female
"Halo"
Student-Rank Quirk:
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Post by Emi Ryoko Tachibana on Jan 2, 2019 13:21:52 GMT -4
There was no doubt that Emi heard the girl, but she didn’t offer much in the way of a response. Her muse could rest assured, though – Emi had much more to lose than gain from disobeying the orders of a volunteer. Finding people willing to go on camera was hard enough – having a rumour spread that they didn’t have any input in the final work would be a death sentence for her project. Explaining that come could later, she decided. The most important thing at that moment was running the show, and by extension, making sure her partner didn’t freak out and run. In a way, her show of confidence was just as much for Rowan as it was for the audience.
Her free hand adjusted the lens as Rowan spoke, getting a nice close-up of her face. Her introduction would go without interruption, but once she had said her piece, Emi popped back into frame, zooming back out to get herself on camera. With a combination of years of experience and some careful steps back, she kept the camera trained on them both as she moved to stand beside the girl. The camera’s movable screen made the task a lot simpler than it should have been – hanging on the side of the camera, it allowed both of them to see exactly what the camera was picking up.
“Thanks, Rowan-chan – I was about to get to that! So, for all of you at home, think of a quirk like a muscle! Hell, for a few moments, think of it as an arm. A third arm. I’m going somewhere with this, I swear.” She let out a brief giggle. “You don’t put any thought into lifting your arm, or using it to grab something, right? But when you were really young, you had to learn how arms work. How to get it to go up, hold things, not punch yourself in the face… Maybe you’re too young to remember it, but go find a baby and you can see them try to get the hang of it. Eventually, we all learn and it’s like second nature!”
“It’s the same deal with quirks! Well, most quirks – mutations can be a bit different, but we’ll get to that another time. We grow up with this extra muscle, and before we can even figure out how to use it, we have to learn what it is, because chances are that nobody around us has the exact same quirk. But that doesn’t stop any of us, right?” She gave her partner a moment to show some approval.
“So quirk users have a pretty good handle on their power from a young age – maybe a little later than people learn to use their arms, but only because most quirks manifest later than arms do.” She gave the camera a cheeky wink. “Back to the muscle metaphor. Your arms can do a lot of things, right? But most of you watching aren’t really into weightlifting; you don’t make a habit of pushing your arms’ limits beyond what you need to get through the day. Ditto for most people with quirks, but in a hero school, we can’t get away with just being average. Think you can weigh in on that, Rowan-chan?” She turned to the girl, realising that she might have spoken for a little too long. For years, she’d run a one-man show, which made having to include another person – heck, trusting another person to join in – a lot more difficult than she had expected. She had faith in the girl, though – she’d shown she could handle pressure in Semper Fi, and Emi herself had helped bring that to light. All she had to do was not blow it.
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1,072 Posts
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Post by Rowan Sakamoto on Jan 18, 2019 15:40:58 GMT -4
| ◀ | The heart is a heavy burden ❤ Rowan spoke and watched how Emi smoothly switched the setting of the camera and came back to stand next to her. She smiled at Emi and wished she had the confidence of just talking like that and not already wondering what people would think of her, considering the people who would watch Emi her vlogs. Now that she heard a lot of people talking about her last vlog or the most recent one that Rowan knew, she was even more nervous. But she had said yes to this and she had really liked the conversation Rowan had had with Emi weeks ago, that she did not want to disappoint.
She carefully paid attention to Emi and as her classmate looked at her, she nodded and gave a thumbs up. Not sure if that's what she wanted to say but she liked the explanation. With the comparison to a normal limb that everyone (or well mostly) had it would make more sense to people, that was the intention Emi had, for as far as Rowan was concerned. She was surprised by the question, hopefully, she did not obviously show that because it was also quite obvious that she would have to talk to the camera as well. Why else offer to help Emi. "Here at the hero school, the teachers try to help us understand how our quirk work and to learn to develop that. We have to do this weightlifting as Emi just called it, but not only the teachers are helping us. The school has a lot of facilities to work on our own and develop our quirks perfectly to the tee." She wanted to point out how important the work behind it was. "It is an extra sort of training we get apart from the normal classes." She wondered if this was what Emi wanted her to say, so she looked at her before considering what she should next.
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414 Posts
0 EP
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Total
17 Years
Female
"Halo"
Student-Rank Quirk:
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Post by Emi Ryoko Tachibana on Jan 24, 2019 19:34:07 GMT -4
Emi’s smile hadn’t failed her, which meant that Rowan hadn’t either. If the girl was still feeling nervous, she was doing a good job of hiding it. Well, compared to most students Emi had met. She wasn’t perfect, but most people weren’t when introduced to a lens. They could work around that. In fact, Emi had planned for it.
“After all, we’ll have a hard time rescuing people if we aren’t in the best shape possible.” She barely missed a beat once her partner finished speaking. “So we train every day, and we’ve got everything we need to train outside of class if we want to. I can’t show you most of that stuff for various reasons-“ Mainly that she hadn’t asked the staff about it. “But if I say it’s good, then you know it has to be impressive! What I can show you is one of UA’s finest students at work, and the fruits of her training after just a few months on campus!” No pressure.
She slipped out of shot and back behind the camera, holding it steady as she stepped half a dozen feet away from her subject. “Don’t worry too much about this part; I’ll just speed through the silence. Just make yourself look cute in the meantime.” She fiddled with the camera for a few seconds, pulling out to a wide enough angle that she wouldn’t miss any of the action. Her free hand positioned itself a few inches beneath the camera, and the space between was filled by her quirk. A mass of white grains floated out of her palm, coming together to form a crystalline cuboid. Once she released the camera, her levitating construct, and the focus holding it up, was all that stood between it and the floor - and several thousand yen’s worth of damage.
Probably not the best idea with an explosion girl a few feet away from her, she quickly realised.
A few more seconds of work saw her add legs to the stand, creating a makeshift tripod for her tool. With a nod of affirmation (to her handiwork and Rowan), she hurried back over to the girl. “Now, Rowan-chan! If you wouldn’t mind demonstrating one of the many ways you can use your quirk.”
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1,072 Posts
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Post by Rowan Sakamoto on Jan 27, 2019 12:35:09 GMT -4
| ◀ | The heart is a heavy burden ❤ She was nervous and she tried her very best to push those thoughts away, she would be doing fine and she would be able to help Emi and that made her only a bit better. She was also still impressed by Emi, not missing a beat and going on with the camera as if it was second nature and Rowan wouldn't be surprised if it truly was. But that only brought more nerves because she could not be as perfect as Emi did and she had been jealous of Emi before, it could have been worse but it could also have been a lot better and she prefered the last one. At least she looked good.
She must inform herself that even if Emi called her UA's finest, she was sure it was only for the sake of the video. Apart from that Emi had seen pieces of her Semper Fi day, which she should not think about too much if she did not want to have a panic attack on the camera. She nodded at Emi when she spoke about not having to worry, she would look cute, right? She picked this outfit because of that. While Emi fixed that she grabbed the bag that she still had next to her to grab the small pouch of marbles that she used to fill the belt on her hero outfit, but she was not wearing that one right now.
When she was ready to show her work, she decided not to show her burn ability. She would wait until she had to show her quirk and looking at the construction of salt that Emi made, which she had learned later. She nodded, "I explode things with touch, of course, there is a more scientifical explanation but I will just show you." She said to the camera, not sure if Emi wanted that but it sounded smart in her mind. She showed the marble for a few seconds to the camera before she looked at the goals that the facility had to her left, the other side of Emi and went to throw the marble that way and it exploded right before it hit the target, the reason why they stood at this point. She had tried it out before. |
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414 Posts
0 EP
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Total
17 Years
Female
"Halo"
Student-Rank Quirk:
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Post by Emi Ryoko Tachibana on Jan 30, 2019 16:10:32 GMT -4
Of course it came naturally to her. In fact, Emi would have been very concerned to hear that she was anything but a natural before the camera. With little need for a job and too much free time, she’d made videos her hobby- no, her career. She owned the camera, in more ways than one, and she knew how to make her cohorts shine too. If that meant filling in for them when they had little to say, she’d do just that.
She knew how Rowan’s quirk worked. Hell, she’d seen it before from Semper Fi. As such, a small blast shouldn’t have caught her off-guard, but her eyes still twitched as the bang reached her ears. “That takes some getting used to…” She spoke in a stage whisper, closely followed by a giggle. As long as she played it off well, any frights were just part of the show. “A quirk like that must be great for standing out! It’s… kinda hard to ignore, really. But! We’re not here today just to gush about one move. So, show or tell, whichever you prefer, but what are the different ways you’ve found to use your quirk?” A verbal nudge would either get the girl’s mouth working or reduce her to a nervous blunder… But if she didn’t believe in her, they wouldn’t be standing there to begin with.
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1,072 Posts
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Post by Rowan Sakamoto on Jan 31, 2019 6:24:59 GMT -4
| ◀ | The heart is a heavy burden ❤ Rowan wondered what more Emi would want to know because well she had spoken about it but her mind was blank at this point. Emi at least knew what her quirk was already, they had spoken about the clip for Semper Fi right, or did she make that up in her mind because she wanted to ask but had forgotten. Which was a very good possibility because she did not want to think about Semper Fi. She looked over her shoulder to Emi when she said it needed time to get used to. She turned back to the camera.
She thought shortly about the question that Emi asked her, it was clear that she was thinking and she had tilted her head slightly to the left. "Well, I learned about my quirk as most quirkers about when I was a child, it was a minor incident because big items are still a difficulty but at this point I keep little marbles with me for training, the glass shards disappear by the explosion, so it's not that particular that would cause the damage. It would be the heat, it helps greatly for opening doors during rescue missions. Because it has nothing to do with fire at first, it can also be used underwater, which..." But she fell silent as she got the memory of semper fi and she looked shortly away, "Is useful in the missions that the school comes up with." She said it with a strained voice because she did not want to think about it. "I can also channel it in my hands only, so no explosion but just the heat in the palm of my hand." She held up her left hand which turned a bit red which meant she channelled it in her hand. She wasn't sure how much this did for her reputation when she was a child people had already been afraid of holding her hand, it wasn't going very well if they saw this. |
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414 Posts
0 EP
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17 Years
Female
"Halo"
Student-Rank Quirk:
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Post by Emi Ryoko Tachibana on Mar 16, 2019 19:03:31 GMT -4
Keeping a small smile on her face and the words off her lips, Emi let the girl share the secrets of her training. It was no surprise to her that they’d discovered their quirks in similar ways: a rather enlightening accident during their childhood. Still, Rowan’s quirk was far more destructive in nature. It didn’t take much thinking to realise why the girl stressed that it was a ‘minor’ incident; anything more brought rather violent images to mind. It was good, then, that the girl explained how she trained without putting anybody in the line of fire, but it didn’t take long for Emi to notice her resolve wavering. Something had disturbed her. The camerawoman had no way of knowing whether it was some deep-seated trauma, a bad memory, whispers of doubt or her own silence that had caused it, but it wasn’t something she would stand for for long. She didn’t like to see people she liked bothered, but more importantly, it did nothing to help her video. She waited until she was sure her partner had finished demonstrating before she picked up the slack, as bubbly as ever.
“Yeah, I feel you there. I found out I had a quirk when a weird boy tried to steal one of my dolls. He maaaay have gotten a spray of salt to his face for that one.” A slightly embarrassed laugh – not embarrassed enough, perhaps – followed shortly after. “He kinda deserved it. Anyway, Rowan-chan brings up a good point. Most people with quirks have to train them, at least a little. A lot of quirks will make their user stand out for all the wrong reasons. Some of them can even be dangerous, the same way a kid with a knife can be. So we learn to get a handle on them – fast. And then, if you’re smart like my friend here, you find a way to practice them that’s quick and easy. Another example would be…!”
She raised her palm into the shot, calling on her quirk to draw a mass of white grains out of the hand. Almost immediately after, she organised chaos into a sphere of white dots, floating above her palm. It wasn’t a far cry from ‘advanced computer graphics’… as depicted by 1980s movies, in that distinctive neon green. The shape gently rotated as she continued. “A little party trick I taught myself when I was bored. Stuff like this looks cool, and it helps me to understand my quirk. But I’m always open to ideas! So, in the comments, let me know how you train your quirk, or how you would train it if you have one! I’m looking forward to reading your answers, but for now that’s all we’ve got time for! Until next time, stay super!” A trademark wink and a wave to go with it. Hopefully Rowan would know to follow suit. Given a few seconds (enough time for parting words, if the girl had any), the girl relaxed her face and her salt sphere, moving to turn off the camera.
“Alright, that was pretty good. I feel like we can teach the masses a lot!” It was important for her to give her co-workers praise. The last thing either of them needed was for doubt and regret to creep in straight after filming… But the words were genuine in spite of that. Besides the hesitation at the end, things had gone just as well as she had hoped, and even better in some areas. Turning to face the girl, she continued. “You composed yourself pretty well, even when you had to use your quirk. Focusing on both at the same time isn’t easy. Trust me, I know, so I appreciate somebody else making it work. And of course, thanks for volunteering for this in the first place. It might take me a bit to sort the footage out, but you should see yourself online soon!”
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1,072 Posts
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Post by Rowan Sakamoto on Mar 22, 2019 15:22:45 GMT -4
| ◀ | The heart is a heavy burden ❤ She tried to laugh but the concept of what just had jumped up in her mind with the idea of underwater, her quirk wasn't based on fire but on friction so she wanted to tell that, hence the comment of being able to use it underwater. But to see the ship filling with water again in her mind eye she felt silent. She did not want to think about that. She should focus on the part where she trained with Miku even if that gave her bad feelings too. She tried to look at Emi and just smile at the conversation. She was glad how Emi tried to point out that she was avoiding hurting people, that was exactly the point that she was trying to get across and Emi seemed to understand. She kept that smile plastered on her face and just waited and watched Emi. She hoped she was doing it correctly as before she did not want to kill Emi's clip from before, they were doing so nice, or well that was natural for Emi but Rowan felt she was doing so good before.
She followed Emi with the wave and an easy (hopefully happy enough sounding) bye. She was glad the camera was off next and her shoulders slumped a little, she had no idea she was holding in this stressed feeling but she shook it off a bit. She smiled, "That would be great." She wanted to apologize for freezing. "I try to focus on composing myself a lot, especially because people tend to consider my quirks as dangerous, I am glad it looked like that so it works." She was glad Emi praised her, felt like her training was worth it. She smiled and nodded, "Thanks for inviting me." She said and gave Emi a small bow which was just how her mother had taught her. She would leave the facilities after that and would go back home to relax, maybe a shower to get over this thoughts. |
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989 Posts
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26 Years
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Post by Maya on Mar 23, 2019 10:13:38 GMT -4
Emi:23 EXP
Rowan:19 EXP
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