Post by Deleted on Sept 15, 2014 7:13:32 GMT -5
Name: Kasumi.
Age: 23.
Gender: Female.
Nation: Fire Nation
Physical Appearance: Kasumi is a young woman born to a Fire Nation family; she carries all of the usual physical traits seen there; the dark brown-black hair, warm brown amber eyes, and very pale skin. The young woman prefers to wear her hair short, or if she must grow it out, to keep it pulled back - easily done, with the current fashions of her Nation. Perhaps a tad shorter than most women in her family, Kasumi nevertheless has a straight-back bearing of superiority - one might call it frigid, though they aren't encouraged to do so within her line of hearing. Kasumi might look plain, with her clothes unadorned of frills and her face plain - and generally with a scowl upon it - but she does come from a family with political machinations; she knows how to pull off confidence when she is not confident and, of course, how to blend into the background when needed.
Her attire is usually - as stated above - very plain and in the typical middle-class Fire Nation style. She prefers more black to red, and red to gold; it helps to create a 'presence'. The one thing she always wears is the necklace her oldest brother bought for her before he left to help in the war; it would hardly fetch more than a few coins on the market, but she still considers it precious. Kasumi also likes to wear layers - loose, baggy clothing over tighter, more sleek garments. The loose clothing allows her to hide an assortment of things, from her coin purse to her knife.
Equipment: Kasumi carries a medium-sized knife on her belt, but little considered 'substantial' in the way of equipment.
Combat Skills: Aside from her bending - and the martial arts inherit to that style - Kasumi has very little in the way of combat skills; she throws punches and kicks as wildly as any other untrained person.
Growing up with two older brothers, one of whom could firebend and the other who had already set his sights on joining the military when Kasumi was born, it was decided early on that Kasumi would join her brothers in their training. If nothing else, she would be able to protect herself and be healthy and active - and it would keep her occupied and out of her parents' hair for a short time, an added bonus for them.
Her eldest brother went to class hoping to learn to fight better; her second eldest brother went to class to hone his bending skills; Kasumi went to class merely to tag along with her older brothers. It was years of training - far past the age when most children show an affinity for bending - that Kasumi's rather unusual propensity for bending reared its' head. Having only studied the Fire Nation-style bending, naturally fire would never sprout from her hands, as that was not to be Kasumi's bending element. On the contrary; an accident with a stray dog showed that, instead, the otherwise entirely normal young girl could bend water.
It was unexpected, to say the least. She showed no signs of Water Tribe ancestry, after all - although elderly aunts and uncles wondered pointedly if her mother had cheated on her father for quite some time - and nobody else in the family could waterbend. With a renewed, albeit confused, vigor, she went back to training under the same master her brothers attended. It had worked well so far, why change? She could bend using the fire-bending style with water - unusual, certainly, but not more than Kasumi being able to bend water in the first place. That is not to say she is a master; given everything else Kasumi had to deal with - helping her mother with her flowers, schoolwork, the usual banalities of life - she is of average skill.
Talents: Thanks to growing up with the mother that she had, Kasumi has some small skill in growing flowers. It isn't anything she can really do on the road, but whenever she settles down for a stretch of time she likes to grow or help tend the local flower gardens. She has no deep urge to become a professional; it's only something to connect her with her mother while she is away from her family - not the passionate skill her mother has cultivated, merely a passing familiarity and want to show off knowledge.
Flaws: Kasumi has a yen to be regarded as knowledgeable - she can't help being a gossip, nor spouting off information that she knows, sometimes...un-discerningly. The dark haired young woman uses her blend-into-the-background charms to, well, blend into the background - she hears more than most people know. It isn't, as she has realized, that they don't know she's there - more often, they forget what and whom she knows, as well. Gossip is only as good as the social circle one can distribute it to, after all.
Spouting off her mouth is a commonality two of her flaws have - gossiping and having little patience for...much of anything, but particularly anything she views as overbearingly authoritarian -- a particular irony concerning the Nation she hails from. Accordingly in line with her flaws, Kasumi tries to avoid talking to guards, captains, or anyone of the like in a professional capacity; wielding ones' authority at her is the surest way to raise the feisty young benders' temper.
History: Kasumi hails from a tolerably medium-sized town in the Fire Nation, near to the capitol. Not near enough to garner invitations to any upper-class goings-on, but near enough to hear about them regularly, at least, a salve for Kasumi's always-eager ears. Her parents are a flower-seller who is attempting to expand her business and a charming man who is aiming to enter 'important' politics. They are a loving couple, and with Kasumi have four children - two boys, 27; nonbender and in the FN military, and 25; fire-bender and helping his father in political matters, Kasumi at 24, and their youngest daughter, age 17; nonbender and general heart-breaker of their home-town.
Childhood is, for Kasumi as readily as anyone else, more hazily remembered the more one ages away from it. In her years as a young adult, she remembers it in a mostly-fond perspective - following her older brothers around, trying to help her mother with her plants and flowers, and eventually being enrolled in the same class her brothers took for the martial arts. The summers were more pleasant back then, she remembers; whether it was because she was a child and reveled in the simple pleasures of things or because she had yet to realize the limitation the weather put on her bending ability, Kasumi has never quite decided.
Adolescence was a much more tumultuous time for Kasumi - it was on the verge of childhood and adolescence that she discovered her water bending, very late for most benders. Of course, the fact that water bending does not naturally lend itself to fire-bending styles - and in fact would oppose it - was a very welcome notion to her worried adolescent mind when her bending did reveal itself. That, in particular, was more surprising than dramatic or scarring - Kasumi remembers it well. A stray dog that had been wandering the neighborhood dove for the bit of meat that Kasumi had been eating on her way home. Shocked and outraged, she reflexively attacked in return, splashing the dog in the face with a burst of water - startling herself as well as the dog, who beat a hasty retreat.
The next weeks were a blur, and that blur in her memory would never really bother Kasumi; she remembers being worried and tense much of the time while her parents talked and decided and talked some more. Eventually, with some close examination of her bending ability, it was discovered that instead of pulling the water from a source - a pond, or a pouch of water - Kasumi pulled it from the air around her. It was, perhaps, simple luck that she ever discovered her bending at all; had she lived further away from the fairly rainy area she lived in, Kasumi might never have discovered she could bend - the arid, bone-dry desert areas that the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom have in common would not be at all conductive to water bending.
Currently, adulthood is treating Kasumi well; she travels, with some help from her parents, trying to learn what she feels that need to learn - and, of course, sending back rare plants or bits of gossip and planning that she discovers. The young woman doesn't consider it spying in the classical sense; instead, she looks at it as helping her family.
Personality: Kasumi's nature is that of a gossipy, somewhat sneaky, know-it-all young woman with bending issues and a temper. Her gossip-prone persona may come from her fathers' yearning for politics - one that he's had for most of his life, and all of hers. She, like her brothers, were always attuned to what people said - and what they didn't say - out of force of habit from seeing their papa do the same, both with other politicians and family. The sneakiness that Kasumi has cultured is her own; her father and mother are both rather straightforward people - and her father in particular always had a love of the limelight that he shared with his sons.
Her skills in bending are unique to her family, perhaps helping along the skill she has at blending in; when one stands out in such an odd way, it benefits one to be able to blend in in other ways. Of course, it doesn't hurt that she has such common features; without her distinctly middle-class clothing, Kasumi could pass as anyone but royalty in the Fire Nation, and perhaps even in the Earth Kingdom, as it shares some of the same physical attributes. Her talent with flowers would only help her in that respect; it's a common, wide-spread hobby and skill, something she frequently uses to start conversations and repartee. Her history has of course affected her personality - part of the reason Kasumi is traveling is to help her mother grow her business, and to see if she can connect with her eldest brother, who serves in the Fire Nation army, and whom she has grown distance from since he left; letters have been few and far between, and despite her temper-fueled blustering, Kasumi is worried.
Pet: No pet.
Writing Sample: Kasumi sighed, running one hand through her cropped-short hair as she glanced around the copse of trees and then back down to the map at hand. It was supposed to be a more recent map - or so she'd been told when her mother pressed it into her hands before she'd left the house. Kasumi was quickly finding out that inside the Fire Nation borders it was quite useful - but once one wandered outside of those borders, the map got...chancy. The paper showed that she was supposed to be standing in a rock quarry that led into and fed an Earth Kingdom trading town; though there were mountains in the distance and some large boulders scattered about, Kasumi wouldn't have called the small patch of woods a 'quarry' by any means.
Rubbing the side of her face with the hell of her hand, the water bender turned the map upside down - hoping that perhaps some new information might reveal itself. Of course, there was no such luck; she was still lost. "I'll find somewhere to get food eventually." Kasumi muttered to herself, tucking the easily-folded map back into her shirt sleeve before straightening the sleeve back out and - with a final glance at the clearing - heading to the small river that winded its' way through the patch of forest and rock. The sun was hanging high in the sky; it was about ten or eleven in the morning, and Kasumi was thankful for the river - traveling by oneself was hard, hot work. She was low on food - but water, well, that was in good supply.
Brushing an errant piece of hair out of her eyes, the pale, dark haired woman bent down towards the river to cup the cool water in her hands, drinking quickly.
Age: 23.
Gender: Female.
Nation: Fire Nation
Physical Appearance: Kasumi is a young woman born to a Fire Nation family; she carries all of the usual physical traits seen there; the dark brown-black hair, warm brown amber eyes, and very pale skin. The young woman prefers to wear her hair short, or if she must grow it out, to keep it pulled back - easily done, with the current fashions of her Nation. Perhaps a tad shorter than most women in her family, Kasumi nevertheless has a straight-back bearing of superiority - one might call it frigid, though they aren't encouraged to do so within her line of hearing. Kasumi might look plain, with her clothes unadorned of frills and her face plain - and generally with a scowl upon it - but she does come from a family with political machinations; she knows how to pull off confidence when she is not confident and, of course, how to blend into the background when needed.
Her attire is usually - as stated above - very plain and in the typical middle-class Fire Nation style. She prefers more black to red, and red to gold; it helps to create a 'presence'. The one thing she always wears is the necklace her oldest brother bought for her before he left to help in the war; it would hardly fetch more than a few coins on the market, but she still considers it precious. Kasumi also likes to wear layers - loose, baggy clothing over tighter, more sleek garments. The loose clothing allows her to hide an assortment of things, from her coin purse to her knife.
Equipment: Kasumi carries a medium-sized knife on her belt, but little considered 'substantial' in the way of equipment.
Combat Skills: Aside from her bending - and the martial arts inherit to that style - Kasumi has very little in the way of combat skills; she throws punches and kicks as wildly as any other untrained person.
Growing up with two older brothers, one of whom could firebend and the other who had already set his sights on joining the military when Kasumi was born, it was decided early on that Kasumi would join her brothers in their training. If nothing else, she would be able to protect herself and be healthy and active - and it would keep her occupied and out of her parents' hair for a short time, an added bonus for them.
Her eldest brother went to class hoping to learn to fight better; her second eldest brother went to class to hone his bending skills; Kasumi went to class merely to tag along with her older brothers. It was years of training - far past the age when most children show an affinity for bending - that Kasumi's rather unusual propensity for bending reared its' head. Having only studied the Fire Nation-style bending, naturally fire would never sprout from her hands, as that was not to be Kasumi's bending element. On the contrary; an accident with a stray dog showed that, instead, the otherwise entirely normal young girl could bend water.
It was unexpected, to say the least. She showed no signs of Water Tribe ancestry, after all - although elderly aunts and uncles wondered pointedly if her mother had cheated on her father for quite some time - and nobody else in the family could waterbend. With a renewed, albeit confused, vigor, she went back to training under the same master her brothers attended. It had worked well so far, why change? She could bend using the fire-bending style with water - unusual, certainly, but not more than Kasumi being able to bend water in the first place. That is not to say she is a master; given everything else Kasumi had to deal with - helping her mother with her flowers, schoolwork, the usual banalities of life - she is of average skill.
Talents: Thanks to growing up with the mother that she had, Kasumi has some small skill in growing flowers. It isn't anything she can really do on the road, but whenever she settles down for a stretch of time she likes to grow or help tend the local flower gardens. She has no deep urge to become a professional; it's only something to connect her with her mother while she is away from her family - not the passionate skill her mother has cultivated, merely a passing familiarity and want to show off knowledge.
Flaws: Kasumi has a yen to be regarded as knowledgeable - she can't help being a gossip, nor spouting off information that she knows, sometimes...un-discerningly. The dark haired young woman uses her blend-into-the-background charms to, well, blend into the background - she hears more than most people know. It isn't, as she has realized, that they don't know she's there - more often, they forget what and whom she knows, as well. Gossip is only as good as the social circle one can distribute it to, after all.
Spouting off her mouth is a commonality two of her flaws have - gossiping and having little patience for...much of anything, but particularly anything she views as overbearingly authoritarian -- a particular irony concerning the Nation she hails from. Accordingly in line with her flaws, Kasumi tries to avoid talking to guards, captains, or anyone of the like in a professional capacity; wielding ones' authority at her is the surest way to raise the feisty young benders' temper.
History: Kasumi hails from a tolerably medium-sized town in the Fire Nation, near to the capitol. Not near enough to garner invitations to any upper-class goings-on, but near enough to hear about them regularly, at least, a salve for Kasumi's always-eager ears. Her parents are a flower-seller who is attempting to expand her business and a charming man who is aiming to enter 'important' politics. They are a loving couple, and with Kasumi have four children - two boys, 27; nonbender and in the FN military, and 25; fire-bender and helping his father in political matters, Kasumi at 24, and their youngest daughter, age 17; nonbender and general heart-breaker of their home-town.
Childhood is, for Kasumi as readily as anyone else, more hazily remembered the more one ages away from it. In her years as a young adult, she remembers it in a mostly-fond perspective - following her older brothers around, trying to help her mother with her plants and flowers, and eventually being enrolled in the same class her brothers took for the martial arts. The summers were more pleasant back then, she remembers; whether it was because she was a child and reveled in the simple pleasures of things or because she had yet to realize the limitation the weather put on her bending ability, Kasumi has never quite decided.
Adolescence was a much more tumultuous time for Kasumi - it was on the verge of childhood and adolescence that she discovered her water bending, very late for most benders. Of course, the fact that water bending does not naturally lend itself to fire-bending styles - and in fact would oppose it - was a very welcome notion to her worried adolescent mind when her bending did reveal itself. That, in particular, was more surprising than dramatic or scarring - Kasumi remembers it well. A stray dog that had been wandering the neighborhood dove for the bit of meat that Kasumi had been eating on her way home. Shocked and outraged, she reflexively attacked in return, splashing the dog in the face with a burst of water - startling herself as well as the dog, who beat a hasty retreat.
The next weeks were a blur, and that blur in her memory would never really bother Kasumi; she remembers being worried and tense much of the time while her parents talked and decided and talked some more. Eventually, with some close examination of her bending ability, it was discovered that instead of pulling the water from a source - a pond, or a pouch of water - Kasumi pulled it from the air around her. It was, perhaps, simple luck that she ever discovered her bending at all; had she lived further away from the fairly rainy area she lived in, Kasumi might never have discovered she could bend - the arid, bone-dry desert areas that the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom have in common would not be at all conductive to water bending.
Currently, adulthood is treating Kasumi well; she travels, with some help from her parents, trying to learn what she feels that need to learn - and, of course, sending back rare plants or bits of gossip and planning that she discovers. The young woman doesn't consider it spying in the classical sense; instead, she looks at it as helping her family.
Personality: Kasumi's nature is that of a gossipy, somewhat sneaky, know-it-all young woman with bending issues and a temper. Her gossip-prone persona may come from her fathers' yearning for politics - one that he's had for most of his life, and all of hers. She, like her brothers, were always attuned to what people said - and what they didn't say - out of force of habit from seeing their papa do the same, both with other politicians and family. The sneakiness that Kasumi has cultured is her own; her father and mother are both rather straightforward people - and her father in particular always had a love of the limelight that he shared with his sons.
Her skills in bending are unique to her family, perhaps helping along the skill she has at blending in; when one stands out in such an odd way, it benefits one to be able to blend in in other ways. Of course, it doesn't hurt that she has such common features; without her distinctly middle-class clothing, Kasumi could pass as anyone but royalty in the Fire Nation, and perhaps even in the Earth Kingdom, as it shares some of the same physical attributes. Her talent with flowers would only help her in that respect; it's a common, wide-spread hobby and skill, something she frequently uses to start conversations and repartee. Her history has of course affected her personality - part of the reason Kasumi is traveling is to help her mother grow her business, and to see if she can connect with her eldest brother, who serves in the Fire Nation army, and whom she has grown distance from since he left; letters have been few and far between, and despite her temper-fueled blustering, Kasumi is worried.
Pet: No pet.
Writing Sample: Kasumi sighed, running one hand through her cropped-short hair as she glanced around the copse of trees and then back down to the map at hand. It was supposed to be a more recent map - or so she'd been told when her mother pressed it into her hands before she'd left the house. Kasumi was quickly finding out that inside the Fire Nation borders it was quite useful - but once one wandered outside of those borders, the map got...chancy. The paper showed that she was supposed to be standing in a rock quarry that led into and fed an Earth Kingdom trading town; though there were mountains in the distance and some large boulders scattered about, Kasumi wouldn't have called the small patch of woods a 'quarry' by any means.
Rubbing the side of her face with the hell of her hand, the water bender turned the map upside down - hoping that perhaps some new information might reveal itself. Of course, there was no such luck; she was still lost. "I'll find somewhere to get food eventually." Kasumi muttered to herself, tucking the easily-folded map back into her shirt sleeve before straightening the sleeve back out and - with a final glance at the clearing - heading to the small river that winded its' way through the patch of forest and rock. The sun was hanging high in the sky; it was about ten or eleven in the morning, and Kasumi was thankful for the river - traveling by oneself was hard, hot work. She was low on food - but water, well, that was in good supply.
Brushing an errant piece of hair out of her eyes, the pale, dark haired woman bent down towards the river to cup the cool water in her hands, drinking quickly.
