Name: Houkoushi Koutaigo (皇太后 蜂光子
Koutaigo Houkoushi)
Nickname(s): Misreadings of her name.
Age: 15
Gender: Female
Nationality: Japanese
Appearance:
Notable Talents/Skills:While she isn't one to toot her own horn (which is admittedly a lie), Houkoushi is a pretty good field hockey player, and is one of the better members of her middle school's interschool team. Although usually playing as an inner or a half, there are at times where she's been shanghai'd into being the goalie when their usual one isn't available, as her 'hardheadedness' and great reflexes work pretty well in the position. Her grades in school aren't too good, consisting of mostly Bs and a few As, but she still takes the time to take part in extracurricular activities like the debating team instead of studying.
Card Deck: Houkoushi isn't actually good at card games, hence why her deck is pretty much an eclectic mix of all the cards she's found lying around the house and/or anything she's managed to scrounge up. It's a schizophrenic mess, but there is one recurring theme in her strategies: her love for
denying satisfaction to her opponents or
stopping them from getting their way. To use the terminology of other TCGs, she's a budding fan of what would be called 'control' decks.
Personality:Smug and a bit vain, Houkoushi is very much a representative of what the old geezers call the 'disrespectful and unruly youth of today', a demeanour that is only furthered along by her rough and tumble manner of speech (which is helped by the nearly-unintelligible accent that she sometimes has). She's a very casual person by nature, and her actions are reflective of such; she'll talk plainly about whatever is necessary to be said, and easily approaches whoever she meets (to the extent that she may even go ahead with giving them a pet name). That's not to say she isn't without tact or any understanding of others, but she finds that it isn't too necessary to be polite at all times. Of course, this does mean that people perceive her as being pretty rude (especially her teachers, who have to deal with being given the title of 'boss' by her).
Her vanity is strongly associated with her strong self-esteem, which can sometimes edge into what others would immediately denote as arrogant. Indeed, she definitely does have a highly positive opinion of herself, but thanks to her great self-awareness, knows that, no, she isn't the best thing since sliced bread. Especially when her little brother constantly beats her up in video games. Still, it's her powerful confidence and general go-getter attitude thanks to it that allows her to charge into things with little hesitation. She can be rather stubborn at times, but for a fifteen year old girl she has a surprising amount of emotional maturity and self-control. If all the excitement hasn't gotten to her brain, then she can think pretty clearly and logically even when stressed.
She's pretty keen and insightful at times too. If she sees a really good opportunity, she won't hesitate to take advantage of her them (usually through the application of a cutesy face or honeyed words). She doesn't go overboard with it, especially when she has a reputation to uphold (nobody's gonna keep taking you seriously if you put up a front as a blob of cuteness or whatever), but building on her natural air of general amicability helps out a lot. It does however, tend to be a problem for others when she's in one of her pettier moods, because she might know good ways to get under someone's skin.
Please stop complaining about her accent or misreading her name. That tends to irritate her.
Don't diss her family either. She likes her family, especially her little bro. Even if he can be a painful lil' brat.
Background:Although a resident of Nagasaki in the west of Japan, Houkoushi's family were originally natives of Isahaya, a smaller city elsewhere in the prefecture (hence her tendency to become unintelligible to Tokyoites due to the strong influence of a mix of the Hichiku and Saga dialects). Her parents had moved to the coastal city in search of better work, and following their marriage, chose to stay, giving birth to three children over the years: two girls and a boy. Thus, Houkoushi grew up in a household where she was the big sister, getting herself a little brother when she was seven and a baby sister when she was thirteen.
Indeed, the life lived by Houkoushi was, despite her rather eccentric name, a rather mundane one. Her days were far from dissimilar to the average girl's in a middle-class, first world lifestyle: she woke up every day to go to school, took care of her siblings, complained to her friends about how (surprisingly not) annoying it was to not have a boyfriend, and stood around in the convenience store around the corner to read magazines without paying. She had a D-Scanner like most kids her age, sure, but she wasn't that great at the game; the professional circuit was something that she never even thought about, especially when things like hockey and homework took up most of her time. The card game was more her little brother Hachirou's (蜂郎) thing, and the constant losses to an eight year old were a killer on a teenage girl's self-respect. Still, it was still a part of her life, albeit a barely-existent one outside the odd logon.
Thus it was completely unexpected that she would receive a letter from D-Connect. Initially, Houkoushi had assumed the letter to have been addressed to her little brother, but when a second look revealed that it was her that they wanted, the third-year middle schooler realised that, much to her horror, she would need to take a whole day off for the event. Attempts at getting out of it failed, especially when her parents thought it was a
w o n d e r f u l opportunity, and so after her Friday afternoon hockey game, Houkoushi found herself, letter in hand, on a ten-hour train trip to the nation's capital.
At least her travel expenses were paid for already.
