Sheet:Emi Hoshino

Emi Hoshino's Sheet

Background

Emi has never quite fit in, anywhere she's been. Whether it was the heterochromia that set her aside as a young kid, or her chosen aesthetic and interests as she settled into adolescence, she's always been on the outside looking in, feeling like she didn't belong. Slumber was always fitful for her even at a young age, and she was often plagued with bad dreams she couldn't quite remember, always leaving her feeling like she'd forgotten something direly important. This worsened after a particular bully and her friends held her down and let the class pet, a tarantula, crawl around on her face while they mocked her heterochromia. She'd already revealed her discomfort with spiders, something about them leaving her deeply unsettled, and this turned her into a committed arachnophobe with constantly traumatic nightmares about them.

'What's Wrong With Emi' became the concern of her parents and the school counselors. Academically, she was doing fine, but she was clearly a socially withdrawn child who developed a tendency for barbed comebacks to her rivals. Self-protection, she had in spades, but even as articulate and mature as she seemed, she was unable to express what it was that was 'wrong' with her, and why she felt less like the other children than she did ... something different. A sense she couldn't place. Life came and went, and she allowed it to pass her by. It's not like she didn't have friends, but she waws more at home reading a book than doing after-school activities with them. As much as she longed for connection, she struggled to find it.

Things changed when she turned thirteen. After a period of particular stress accompanied by worsening and particularly lucid nightmares, something inside her changed. As the horrible spider-demon of her nightmares webbed her up to consume her once again, she simply turned to it and asked it, bluntly, "What's even the point of this? Wouldn't it be better to be friends?".

She was so *tired*, but something inside her demanded change, demanded better. She stopped feeling afraid and simply shrugged off its webbing, seizing its power for her own and binding it in her place. The spark of hope she felt became an ember in her hand, and with it, she burned away the darkness inside of her, leaving something better in its place, and the spider-monster that had plagued her dreams for so long changed into a seemingly harmless and adorable common jumping spider.

KenKen, as she came to call her, unveiled to her a world of magic and dreams to her. A world of light and shadow where demons prowled the dreamways, feeding on and spreading pain. It was the Oneiromancers, KenKen told her, that saw to it that people are protected from these shadows. Oneiromancers like herself, who can confront the powers of nightmares. An Oneiric Guardian, if you would. Oneiric Guardian Emi? She liked the sound of that. After years of uncertainty, it felt like she'd finally found what she was meant for, what she'd been missing all along, and she was all too eager to ignore the gnawing sense she was forgetting something important to jump in head first.

Of course, no one ever said being an Oneiromancer and Guardian is easy! Emi, in fact, was pretty bad at it. Kyoto was plagued with nightmares, and so far as she could see she was the only one doing anything about it. She had begun to notice people tethered by strings of dreampower to some central creature, people with hooded, shadowed eyes and despair in their hearts. She resolved to do something about it. Fighting evil by moonlight (in your sleep of course!) isn't *easy*, and investigating these matters, forging the bridges necessary to help people, was hard work. The demon was planting nightmares in people, which threatened to realize yet more nightmares. She could defeat them, but finding the demon behind it all was proving troublesome, even with KenKen's help. Her academic performance, which had always been fairly good, plummeted and she began skipping class, and sneaking out at night, even getting grounded when she was caught for the first time. Things got complicated when she narrowed down that the monster in question might just be operating out of a market, or have some ties to it. As a result, she wound up being attacked by animated mannequins under a nightmare's control. As she hadn't quite mastered the art of bringing her powers into reality just yet, she ... wound up seemingly vandalizing the storefront, in the eyes of mundane authority, and got herself arrested.

A meeting with her therapist compounded matters even worse: when she saw them again, she recognized the same hooded eyes and darkness inside them that she had seen in others. Not only had the monster identified her personally, it had taken someone with the authority to make things so much worse for her. At this realization, she did what she had always done when confronted with a problem she couldn't deal with: lashed out verbally. She'd always had a sharp tongue, and this time, she incensed something she was in no way prepared to handle. Hands closed around her throat and she landed a kick square to a region that no one wants to dwell on, enough to make the demon lose its grip momentarily, and the commotion bring in others.

Now looking for all the world like she'd just assaulted her therapist, and definitely cementing her reputation as a massive juvenile delinquent, she was put in the system and was about to face serious consequences. 

... but in a stroke of fortune, a recommendation that a change of scenery might do her some good reached her parents, and with agreement, she has been reassigned to Radiant Heart Academy, transferred from her home town and under supervision.

With little choice, Emi has fully embraced her reputation as a delinquent as a means to protect her secrets. What else can she do? She's going through a rebellious phase, clearly. In the time she had left before the transfer, she continued to confront the Kyoto Dream Demon as best she could, but with limited abilities to bridge the gaps with its victims, her fear that she will be transferred before she can defeat it was realized, and she arrived in Tokyo by train, waking from a brief nap to the sound of its resounding laughter.

Of course, she has every intention of facing it again, and this time, she won't let it win.

Personality

Emi Hoshino was one of those far too serious kids who always seemed mature for her age. Call her an old soul, if you will, but Emi today would liken it to the Baku, those mythological dream devourers who were put together last from the leftover pieces of everything else. Emi has always felt the 'vibes were off' between her and peer group in Kyoto, something that wound up being expressed in things like her fashion choices and lack of success in finding a social circle and clubs that she felt she fit in with.

For most of her youth, Emi was a committed arachnophobe. She hated spiders. She had nightmares about spiders. She had a traumatic experience with a bully and spiders once her arachnophobia became known, and that made everything so much worse. Having conquered her fear and purged the negative associations she had with it, Emi now quite likes spiders, particularly her magical companion spider KenKen.

As a somewhat anxious child, Emi discovered that horror and scares could help ease her anxieties. The controlled scare of a horror movie, like that of a roller coaster, became a balm that helped her cultivate the bravery she needed to conquer her nightmares. To this day, she's always in the first in line to see the latest horror movie, and she'll bloody well sneak in if she has to. This has extended to an overall enjoyment of the macabre and gothic fashion. This is something that she has discovered just feels 'right' for her.

Emi has always been a kind kid. Despite being an arachnophobe, she'd never squish a spider, or let anyone else squish a spider. She'd make sure they got put outside and somewhere safe, ideally. She's particularly focused on helping those who, like herself, might slip by otherwise unnoticed. The isolated, the outcast, and the different are natural bailiwick. Being heterochromatic herself and made fun of for it from an early age has helped her to exercise her empathy, something that has come to serve her well as an Oneiric Guardian.

Emi might act like she doesn't care what you think of her, but of course, she's a kid and words hurt. She's sensitive, empathetic, and emotional beneath the rather chill and confident exterior she tries to cast herself in, hoping to fake it until she makes it with regards to her sense of self worth. Even if she's taken to being an Oneiric Guardian with gusto, on a certain level she really doesn't feel like she deserves it, and her desire to help people is a means by which she is hoping to gain some self-approval and self worth.

While Emi has a well earned reputation in Kyoto as a delinquent, this is an affectation she's taken on as a means to preserve her secrets. Even if the things people say about her sting, she's fine with it if it serves its purpose in protecting her secret identity. She has learned, after all, that nightmares are not limited to the dream world when they're strong enough, and letting one figure out her identity was a mistake she won't make again.

'Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than the fear'. Emi's known fear. Intense fear, even. She'd met it in her nightmares, over and over again. Conquering that fear in the first place is what has let her become an Oneiric Guardian. As such, some would call her brave. She'd deny it out of traditional Japanese humility, of course, but calling her courageous would not be an untrue descriptor of her. She's just good at moving past her own fears.

Emi has one hell of a case of Imposter Syndrome. Something is eating her, telling her she isn't who she's supposed to be, or who she thinks she is. As much as she has taken whole heartedly to what she's doing, the nagging fear that something isn't right hasn't fully abated. She feels like she's forgotten something important. *Really* important.

Emi's got a bit of a temper, especially as of late. While she tries to keep a pretty serene mien, and she's pretty good at it for her age, she *is* a teenager and even her emotional regulation can falter. Most of her anger is self-directed, over her failures and failings, her inability to conquer the dream demon in Kyoto for example, but it's bigger than that, and she hasn't quite pieced out what it is that so upsets her about herself.

Focus

The endless battle for dominance over the heart of humanity unfolds across all realms, even within the realm of dreams. To counter the insidiously growing strength of darkness on the minds of dreamers, Oneiric Guardians can arise, burdened by choice with the solemn duty of safeguarding dreamers from the clutches of nightmarish terrors. By bravely facing the shadows that haunt both dreamworld and reality, these guardians strive to grant the world a more peaceful slumber, for at times the specter of tragedy lurks just one restless night away.

To become an Oneiric Guardian, one must confront and overcome their personal nightmare and purify it of the negativity associated with it. It isn't just enough to 'defeat' the nightmare, one has to meaningfully embrace it in some way, turning it from a weakness to a strength. If someone of the appropriate age and potential can do this, one can bring a piece of that sanctified nightmare into the real world with them. It will serve as the focus and symbol of their new power over dreams and allows them to join the ranks of the Oneiric Guardians... if they so choose. Every such talisman is unique and specific to the nightmare it came from, be it a friendly talking spider, a tiny and cute version of the monster under their bed, or a locket symbolizing the loss of a loved one. The observant foe can potentially gain some insight into the Guardian by the shape of their talisman or its reflection in their powers.

In addition to encouraging restful, positive slumber, self-realization through dreaming and good feelings, Oneiric Guardians get their name from their responsibility in confronting Nightmares with a capital N. In a place where magic is stronger, the powers of darkness can manifest by realizing someone's nightmare into a Youma that must be confronted. In addition, there are Youma that spread, prey on, and draw strength from nightmares in the dreaming world, as well as in reality. Oneiric Guardians can sometimes see when someone is touched by these despairing shadows and must intervene before this darkness wholley consumes its victims. This intervention can take any number of forms, typically battles in the dream world where the guardians either help the victim confront their fears head-on, casting out the shadow in their mind, or defeat the dream-demon themselves by ultimately capturing and purifying it through their talismans, reducing it into harmless dream energy.

Style

As befitting something that draws its powers from something as individualized as dreams, Oneiric Guardians can vary wildly in style and appearance, with their powers frequently reflecting the talisman from which they channel dream magic. Commonalities do exist, however, with manifestations of their powers having an ephemeral, dreamy quality to it, a haze of sparkles and shimmering light surrounding them. Manifestation of sleeping sand, tapirs or their mythological counterparts in the Baku, or other cultural associations with dreaming can often appear when they invoke the fullness of their power or transformation.

Powers

Every psyche is possessed of its own dreamscape and, in accordance with the prime mission for Oneiric Guardians, Emi can enter them to help someone confront their personal nightmare, or to confront a dream-demon that's haunting them. Typically, when alerted to the shadow of a nightmare hanging over someone, the Guardian will try to establish some kind of sympathetic connection with the target. The most typical means to accomplish this is by giving them some kind of token as a gift from the Guardian. While not necessary, it does further help matters if the token has some kind of emotional connection or significance of its recipient in some way. Absent this connection, a Guardian remains capable of brute-forcing their way into an individual's dreamscape, most often the result of some kind of critical emergency such as the presence of a youma, but it is considerably more taxing and causes the Guardian to start at a clear disadvantage in most of the situations where it is warranted. Given that injuries sustained by the dreaming Guardian are reflected on their physical person, it is something that they prefer to avoid whenever possible.

In her dreams, or in full on magical girl mode in reality, Emi's association with spiders is made manifest. Her particular powers take the form of sparkling and gossamer dream-webbing of various strength, thickness, and sharpness that allows her to capture, control, or wound. Other manifestations of this power, such as netting to cushion a fall or to climb an impossible gap, are also possible. It dissipates quickly into dream-stuff as soon as she takes her attention off it -- and it's not exactly hard to rattle a 14 year old girl.

Emi is accompanied by an aura of restfulness and those who spend time with her often wind up falling asleep more easily and having an unusually good night's sleep. They'll find their wounds healing a little faster, that cold abating a little quicker, or just enjoy that rare feeling of 'You awaken and feel well-rested'. This goes for Emi as well. Sleep is very good for her and she can fall asleep exceptionally fast if she so chooses. In addition, all Guardians have the ability to enter a lucid-dreaming state, giving them some, but not complete, influence over the flow of their own dreams and the shape of their own dreamscape on any given night. Those with a strong connection to their own dreams may also more easily achieve a lucid dreaming state if they are prone to that.

The locus of Emi's power, her personal talisman, is her talking spider companion KenKen. Plagued as a child by nightmares of spiders, particularly after a traumatic event involving one, Emi confronted and befriended her fears and purified it of its negative associations in her mind. This embrace has turned it into a source of strength. Moreover, KenKen is her guide to the world of Oneiromancy. Everything she knows about it, she knows from her, and she's uncertain how KenKen even knows these things. KenKen, for their part, isn't saying. KenKen takes the form of an adorable little, multi-colored jumping spider. A Guardian's talisman also plays a role in the fulfillment of their duties, with Emi calling on KenKen to consume and purify nightmares she has defeated, rendering them back into the dream stuff from which they came.

While sleeping, Emi maintains an instinctual awareness of her physical body. This makes it hard to sneak up on the sleeper and is especially useful when the teacher throws something at her for napping in class. This power can be further exploited by the Guardian to enter a state similar to sleep paralysis, leaving their mind wakeful and able to perceive the real world while their body remains asleep. Additionally, one can not perceive both the dreamscape and the real world at the same time, however, and doing this could leave a Guardian vulnerable in the right conditions. It is also not a state that can be maintained indefinitely, perhaps forty five minutes or so before it becomes taxing. More often, it's used to just take a better peek at what's happening around them.

Like all Oneiric Guardians, Emi has the ability to sense if someone is plagued by nightmares, especially if its the capital N kind of nightmares. This manifests as a kind of ghostly shadow clinging to them that she sees only out of her right, blue eye, indirectly, or if she looks directly at them through her fingers.