Orihime (RWBY character)

Name: Orihime (means "Weaving Princess") (surname not yet decided)

Appearance: A tall fair skinned woman with green eyes, copper coloured hair, typically wearing a dress and elevated wooden sandals. The dress varies based on the season, but it's usually a slightly bluish light grey and white, with its main colour being the light grey, while the white is used for its crane inspired patterns, often taking the form of repeating patterns of crane silhouettes forming a circle around parts of her dress such as the sash or the loose sleeves.

It's easy to assume that the dress is shorter in the summer and longer and more layered in the winter.

She seems to be a young adult, somewhere between 18 and 25.

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Personality: Orihime is generally a very calm person, sometimes excessively in a way that doesn't do her any favours. She ranges from being easy going and friendly to being incredibly serious.

Often, the calm and somewhat cold demeanour that she carries doesn't do her any favours when it comes to actually making friends with her easy going side, but it's at least easy to get the impression that she is forgiving and difficult to anger... On the other hand, her seriousness is much more visible, but her anger is not. It's hard to tell when she actually gets mad at anyone while she is wearing what could be at worst, a stern expression and at best, a fake smile or a smile of madness.

As far as inner workings go. She is focused on only the present and her immediate surroundings, despite her calmness, she is very alert and doesn't actually spend the time to seriously think, instead preferring to rely on gut instinct, experience and intuition to carry her through her day to day life... This isn't to say that she can't think at all, though people often make the mistake of thinking that she is a thoughtful type based on her calm demeanour.

This level of alertness is not without its drawbacks though, it can be quite stressful, even when distracting oneself with tons of battle practice... She counteracts this potential stress with various hobbies, typically sewing and various forms of craftsmanship.

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Backstory: (The short version) She grew up as an only child in a farming village, offering assistance to her working father from a relatively young age, despite not being fully interested in farming, she saw the value of helping others and found some enjoyment in manipulating the various farm tools. Even using some in creative manners that extend outside of their original purpose. Her mother wasn't around since she died during child birth, but while she really wanted to know who she was, she wasn't too bothered by it beyond a bit of resentment.

Despite never personally meeting her, she wanted to become like her mother, as much as she could know about her and from what she was told, her mother wanted her to take after her in her craft; sewing.

She wasn't as attached to her father directly. Though present, his somewhat distant treatment of her earned the same distance back, preferring to do farm work with other villagers or alone after being shown how to do each task once.

At some point, the Grimm showed up. The adults of the village could fend them off with minimal losses due to their relatively physically demanding lifestyle, but a small amount of panic spread throughout the village nonetheless, which ends up attracting the Grimm, albeit in smaller amounts than what would be drawn in had the panic been more wide spread.

This allowed the village to endure for a long time while their messages were sent town to town, eventually reaching the ear of a hunter...

His presence alone calmed the village and being able to single handedly defeat the next onslaughts of Grimm lifted a burden off of the shoulders of the village... Though told to stay inside during any attack, Orihime snuck out to a place where she could watch the hunter do his work from a safe distance, sitting atop of a tree branch and watching the forest clearing that sits between the village and the main direction that most Grimm seem to attack this village from.

She saw it all... The aura, the semblance, the use of dust, the unique weapons and everything. He danced and weaved around the Grimm like a flower petal in the wind, unphased by the few strikes that slip past his defences even when they seem like they could send a normal man flying. She could barely see his weapon, meanwhile, the Grimm around him just seemed to collapse or burst into finely diced cubes before fading away into nothing.

Throughout the entire battle, it took her a while to realise that he wasn't even looking at the surrounding and closing Grimm that he was fighting. Instead, he was looking at her, his gaze practically threading the needle through numerous tree branches that obstructed seeing her more so than it obstructed her own view from atop of a tree branch... Underneath that warm confidence was someone looking out for her, making sure that no Grimm was going after her.

... There he stood with triumph, every Grimm in sight now gone, while not a single scratch was left on his body...

The idea of becoming a hunter was immediately embedded into her mind. She was almost completely sold, the only threads holding her back are her feelings of obligation to live up to either her father's wants of helping around the farm or her mother's apparent wants of becoming a seamstress or dress maker. To help others or to make beautiful clothing.

The following day, she asked the hunter a number of questions alone, some subtle and some not so subtle, but overall, she got a general idea of where to go if she wanted to be a huntress. One particularly convincing aspect was a small series of questions around semblances; it's possible for a semblance to take inspiration from being a seamstress.

Being unable to convince her father of the idea somehow ended up motivating her more than it discouraged her though. She wanted to be the person pulling the strings on her life, not her father... So, she snuck away again, this time for good. They never realised that she snuck away the first time and considering she prefers to work alone, no one could've stopped her and hardly anyone watches her.

She was surprisingly capable of travelling alone, her farm experience giving her a general idea of tool usage, some knowledge of various kinds of food and a lot of inherent strength from all kinds of farm work, while her ability to weave fabric gave her something that she could sell to others in order to stay on the move and appear less like a runaway and more like a young yet wealthy traveller.

In the long term, she didn't regret it. She was more attached to the idea of helping others rather than her father and with her mother dead, she could effectively carry her desires and skills with her. She felt like she was leaving a lot behind in the moment, but now, all threads to that farming village had been cut. She even had the initial idea of coming back to be an ever present protector of the village, but even that thread had been severed with her distance.

Meanwhile, her father has long since given up looking for her. He correctly assumed that she snuck away, but assumed that she did not survive on her own.

She eventually got taken in by a primary combat school, climbed her way through it, entered a huntsman academy, gradually developed her semblance and became who she is today... A huntress.

Along the way, she did not make many friends and beyond being tougher than she looks and having a great head start into the primary combat school, her progress through it was otherwise not too remarkable or outstanding.

This latter part and the future are left open and flexible for the demands of the RP.

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Semblance: Thread manipulation "Crane's Thread"

Main application - The ability to manipulate threads of fabric. Since she is unable to create threads out of nothing, she takes control of the fabric that her clothes are made of as well as hidden stores of threads in her sleeves.

Threads under her control are compressed down to a finer, almost invisible size and are reinforced to the point of becoming durable and sharp, though the sharpness varies based on her will and still requires a decent amount of force or pressure in order to cut through tougher materials and Grimms.

She can not only control the shape of the threads by curling or straightening them at any point of their length, but can manipulate potential energy by simultaneously trying to straighten or curl the threads while holding them perfectly still. Not unlike holding down a metal spring while manipulating its 'potential shape' to be longer and longer... This is great for very sudden movements, though it requires a brief preparation to pull off.

She can release a thread from the control of her semblance, causing it to instantly revert to its original properties and appearance.

She can control any thread that she has touched in the past three hours or has been touched by a thread that she is actively controlling, but not inactively. In order to lose control of a thread, she has to stop manipulating it, touching it or touching it with a thread that she is actively manipulating, then leave it for three hours.

The sky is the limit when it comes to creative uses of this semblance.

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Inspirations: Her name is one inspiration, meaning: Weaving princess. While she is not a princess, she can certainly dress like one if she so chooses.

The crane motifs throughout her character come from the story "Tsuru no Ongaeshi" - "Crane's Return of a Favour".

In a way, her life is dedicated to returning a favour.