FH: Nanami

Application for !!

Human

Name: Kai Kahoalani
Age: 24
Height: 5 ft 3 in/ 160cm
Weight: 121 lbs/54.9 kg

Occupation: Swim teacher, lifeguard on weekends
Nationality: Hawaiian
Currently Residing: Honolulu, Hawaii, USA

Other

Name: Nanami
Age: 132
Species: Mermaid
Height: 6 ft 3 in/190.5 cm

Call Sign: Taniwha
Role: Support
Rank: Recruit
Assigned Region: Oceania

Abilities: 

Anticipating Disaster (Duration: 2 Cooldown: 5)– Mermaids were regarded by the British as omens of ill fortune. While Nanami herself may not be bad luck, she feels it’s best to always be prepared for the worst. She utilizes magic to create a protective coating of scales for teammates in order to reduce the potential for injuries for a limited time.

Ocean Life (Cooldown: 5) – Utilizing water’s natural soothing properties Nanami can use it to heal her companions’ injuries – but only scrapes and bruises for the moment. Can only be used at close range.

Shifting Tides (Cooldown: 5) – Nanami can create small waves that push opponents away from her and her allies, using water from the waterskin she carries with her. Cannot cause damage.

Slick Scales – Something of an emergency measure, Nanami generates a slick layer of clownfish-like mucus to increase her natural defenses when she perceives herself to be in mortal danger. Makes her difficult to grasp.

Personality:

Earnest | Friendly | High empathy | Wishy-washy | Non-confrontational | Supportive | Anxious

Easygoing, warm, and friendly, Nanami is an agreeable sort. She likes it when people get along, and will do whatever she can to maintain group harmony – even if it means ignoring some pretty objectionable behavior. This leads to her personal allegiances sometimes being as fickle as the currents, though this is usually only on the individual level. When it comes to organizations and goals, she’ll commit to the end. She likes to have a broad range of relationships, which has led her to many shallow friendships but very few deep, long-standing bonds. She feels like she hasn’t found her niche with her fellow Others, and prefers to interact with humans much of the time. The fact that she feels she can only be fully herself in ocean, thereby creating a barrier between the land- and air-dwelling Others, contributes to this feeling. She covers it with smiles and cheer, or at least attempts to. She's actually quite nervous around Others and has the tendency to babble, especially if she thinks she crossed a line of courtesy. Don’t count on her on a contested issue between friends, as she’ll refuse to choose sides (chances are she’ll back both opponents) and rarely gives opinions, but you can always depend on her to be there when you need a shoulder to cry on or a pat on the back.

History: Nanami has been in the Pacific for as long as she was aware of herself. For her brief (?) century of life, she spent much of her time swimming from place to place, watching various groups of humans on islands throughout the Pacific, enamored with the differences in their stories, foods, cultures, and living styles. Her views of humans were conflicted, however, as she spent many of her young years witnessing increasing violence and unrest due to the conflicts of the 20^th century, especially World War II. She saved the lives of many a sailor in the Pacific Theater of combat, not discriminating between flags or national loyalty as she had no personal interest in either side’s goals.

It was eventually through the bloodshed and violence she witnessed that a strong desire to help and protect humans was born. She saw both their good sides and their bad ones, and concluded that humans needed some help defending themselves from themselves. Not wishing to leave her native ocean but in keeping with her natural noncommittal personality, she simply settled on whatever island she was near at the time to avoid a big decision. This happened to be the largest island in the chain known as Hawaii.

She took to her new home rather slowly, as leaving the ocean was difficult. The air was dry, and difficult to breathe. She leaned towards jobs that would put her in contact with the ocean and water as much as possible, and ended up a swim teacher for the children in her community. Children have always been her favorite humans, with their active imaginations and seemingly boundless energy. Being fairly young herself, she may have found kinship in their warmth and innocence. It doesn’t hurt that some of them ask her if she’s a mermaid (she answers with nothing more than a conspiratorial wink).

Her one sticky issue with humans is their treatment of the environment. She cannot understand how they can be so flippant about the destruction they’re causing to their own world, let alone the Others’ world. The damage done to the ocean is her most significant bother. She takes this lack of concern about the environment as further evidence that humans must be protected from themselves, especially with their lacking knowledge of how the environment’s destruction impacts all life around them, including the lives of Others. Protecting the environment – and thus the living space of all creatures - motivates her to finally take up with her own kind, as she believes everyone deserves to have a safe place to live. If she can save some humans and Others the trouble of fighting in the meantime, all the better.


Likes:

- Fish and coral reefs, and by extension, aquariums

- Humid weather

- Children

- Hula dancing

- Fruit, the one thing she wishes they had in the ocean

- Music

Dislikes:

- Fighting and Violence, especially in between humans

- Ocean pollution

- Making decisions

- Meat, especially pork

- Dry places and weather

- Cold places and weather, as she’s always been a tropical sort of mermaid. She can do open water, but always stays at relatively shallow depths because deep ocean scares her

Additional Info: 

- Her human name was deliberately taken from Hawaiian so she could blend into the environment, but her Other name and Call Sign are from various other Pacific cultures she’s come into contact with – her Other name is Japanese for “seven seas” and her Call Sign is Maori.

- She was actually named by another Other - the only Other she cites as a friend. Being alone in the sea, she had never needed a name before.

- She’s always been a bit nomadic, so her move onto land has been difficult. She sometimes disappears for a week or two to spend some time swimming far away from the humans to experience the open freedom of the ocean again.

- Her lifeguarding job is kind of a supplement to her swim teacher job and also a throwback to her past of saving humans from drowning.

- She shows the scales on her face and her true form eye color on missions for aesthetic purposes. If she ever needs to operate underwater, she’ll revert completely to her true form, in which case she has an armband with the Folkhaven symbol.

- She has an aquarium in her room with about 6 fish.

Roleplay Preferences: I’m a lit/para type but I don’t mind doing script-style either! I RP on skype, through dA notes, dA chat, email, whatever works! The only thing I don’t really do is social media accounts, like twitter or tumblr. And my time zone is GMT-5!