Winter Adamas

OOC Information:
Name: MaxSalsa
Are you over 15? Yeeep.
Contact: MaxSalsa; AIM UltimateSalsa

IC Information:
Name: Rikka Hishikawa; reincarnated, Winter Adamas
Canon: Dokidoki! Precure
Age: 14 preincarnated; to make her a little more versatile, her reincarnation will be 17.
Preincarnation Appearance: Rikka, and her form as Cure Diamond.
Any differences: Winter's hair is a deep black that could be mistaken for purple, and reaches to just above her knees, while her eyes are a light shade of emerald. She actually needs her glasses (not pictured above; seen here, in one of Rikka's icons) to see, not just to read. She's a little self-conscious about wearing glasses, though, so she sometimes wears contacts, and supplements them with reading glasses as needed.

Preincarnated History: (Warning: Rikka's canon isn't actually finished yet, so while her Echoes restore everything else, they'll also edit any newly-introduced inconsistencies in her character that may crop up. I expect these to be relatively few by this point. Official romanizations of terms, when/if available, will be edited in and kept up to date on her info page as needed, and the rest of her history will be edited into her app as well. Content contradicted by new canon will be struck out, and anything added by new canon will be underlined. I'll keep using italics for headcanon.)

Rikka is a middle-school girl that happens to have become a magical girl - a Precure - when her best friend found herself caught up in a conflict with the Selfish, a force that draws energy from the selfishness of humans. On the other side of that conflict is Makoto Kenzaki, Cure Sword, whose kingdom has been lost to an invasion by the Selfish. Her princess is now also missing. And Rikka's best friend Mana is exactly the sort of person that would jump headfirst into a situation she knows nothing about to save someone in need. Thus, Mana became Cure Heart, and when Rikka found that Mana was shutting her out and confronted her about it, Rikka took up the power of Precure herself to protect Mana, becoming Cure Diamond.

Not much time has passed since Rikka took up the power of Precure, and at this point, her daily life consists of her duties as student council secretary (serving Mana, its president), lots of studying to follow in her mother's footsteps and become a doctor, and occasional time with her head in a book of the Hundred Poems. Oh, and some time set aside to fight the forces of evil, who bring forward the selfishness in people's hearts and turn that into a monster, causing havoc across the city. Only the Precure - largely only Heart, but theoretically also Diamond and the others as well but the others as well in a pinch - can purify these monsters and restore victims' hearts.

As for Rikka herself, she's a relatively normal girl; her mother is a pediatrician and her father travels the world taking pictures, so she's home alone relatively often. Since she was a little girl, she was close to Mana, who lives close by, and over the years the two have become inseparable.

Reincarnated History: Winter was born in a tiny little town in the midwest called Branfield. Nothing much happened. Nobody ever moved in, nobody ever left. Everything was the same, every day. Same weather, same three patrons of the same single convenience store, same delivery trucks. Her father wrote the same dull articles for the same dull local newspaper with the same lack of information; rarely, he'd be called away to write something less dull for someone else. Her mother drove an hour each way every day to work at the hospital, where she ran the pediatric ward; that was a little less dull, but it was so far away that she had to leave early every day and get back late every night, so she didn't see Winter that much. The days went on in a boring sameness for a long time.

There was one thing that she took solace in, though: books. Since she was very young, her father (and her mother, when she was home) read to her often. First simple picture books. Then more complicated things, and eventually Winter would read the books herself because she adored them. Her only problem was that after a little while, she'd already read everything in the house save the newspapers. And she even read those a few times each when they came in.

When the grant came in to build a library, Winter was seven. And you would think that she'd been told Christmas was coming early and twice a year for the rest of her life.

Every day after school, she walked down to the Branfield Town Library, and sat in a too-large armchair with a stack of books. She started with the children's books, and worked her way up. By the time she was nine she had started on the young adult section. She loved everything she read; she felt like she could leave her little town and fly away to all sorts of places through her books. Along the way, she'd discovered the letters were getting blurry, and had to convince her parents to take her to the optem opptomo eye doctor to see what was wrong; she was prescribed reading glasses, which she insisted on bright red frames for "because they looked pretty".

At school, meanwhile, Winter was pretty quiet; she liked school because it was like learning from books, except the person talking to you about things had actually done some of those things and could tell you more than the book could when you asked questions. The other kids saw her as a little idealistic and distant, though, and she was often ignored. Not that she minded; time spent with the other kids was time she didn't spend reading. Her teacher noticed, and struggled with a decision, before electing to let Winter continue to grow as the person she wanted to be, rather than force her to fit in. But she always watched out for the girl, just in case. Even after Winter left elementary school, her teacher continued to be friendly whenever they met up. Which, in a town so small, was often.

When she hit middle school, Winter was already reading through novel after novel, and starting to look through simple high-school textbooks to further her learning. She was amazingly intelligent, but socially she'd become an outcast, the ditzy girl that always had her nose in at least one book, and couldn't carry a conversation to save her life. (Which wasn't entirely true - she got along great with her elementary school teacher, and the librarian, and her parents...) So while she was still respected for her knowledge, and was trusted to have solutions whenever everyone else got stuck, the rest of the time she was quietly left in the corner.

High school would probably have been more of the same, except Winter's mother announced that she was being transferred to a university hospital in some other place. "Locke City", she'd called it. Winter looked up information in the library, and found that there was an even bigger library there. That filled all one of her conditions to move, and a few weeks later she moved into her new home on the slightly more affluent side of town. That was three years ago. Winter has spent that time continuing to hone her knowledge, and specifically to start learning about people via psychology books; her mother has helped with that, now that she's home more often. Her goal for the last year or so: make at least one true friend. Her progress... has not been great. But she's not giving up yet! After all, people trust her, in some capacity... so she's got to keep trying! Just because she hasn't been fitting in, doesn't mean she can't work harder at it!

A couple of months ago, there was that weird pink light in the sky... she dove into her books looking for answers, but didn't find anything, so she set it aside and went back to her more general studies, though it continued to bother her. And now, going into her senior year, Winter won an election to the student council, where she can use her talents effectively. As she accepted the position with a huge smile, something seemed to shake loose in her head, and added to her knowledge was a big question mark in the form of a set of numbers she didn't understand. Now she's in the awkward position of having a big question and no forseeable way to answer it...

First Echo: Winter's election to the student council mirrors Rikka's; Rikka, however, served Mana, its president, and she was the whole reason Rikka ran in the first place. Winter gets a flash of a pink-haired girl asking a younger version of herself to run because she wouldn't be able to keep up with things by herself. She's horribly confused about the image she's been shown - and the weird number she can't get out of her head - and she's been spending long nights trying to look up the answer, or work it out somehow.

Preincarnation Personality: Rikka is a study in an uninteresting character made interesting by her friends. Alone, she'd be a bookworm with a desire to follow in her mother's footsteps. She doesn't leave the house much unless she's going somewhere with her friends (or to school), and she can almost always be seen with flashcards, a book, or something else to study with. She wants to learn things, and she does know quite a bit, but there's no meaning in knowledge for knowledge's sake, and Rikka realizes that.

It's through her friends, and Mana specifically, that Rikka shines. She's easy to tease, takes things way too seriously, and worries way too much. Perhaps more notably, she takes it upon herself to watch out for her friends, because she's used to her friends not watching out for themselves. That's largely resulted in her fussing over them every chance she gets - especially with Mana. In her case specifically, Rikka's devoted herself to protecting Mana from her excesses of selflessness, with selflessness of her own. Of course, we also know that Rikka gets jealous of Makoto butting into Mana's life, so it's highly likely there's something more there. Rikka probably doesn't even realize it, but she's gotten far closer to Mana than is safe, and it's going to turn into something more if she's not careful. Were Mana not to exist, it's entirely possible that she would latch onto someone similar in her life in a very similar fashion.

Amusingly, Rikka is easily flustered. She expects things to go a certain way - whether from experience or knowledge - and when something otherwise happens, she scrambles to keep up. If things get too ridiculous, she'll happily voice her opinion, but for the most part, she trusts in her friends to make things work out. That said, she's also somewhat passive; she trusts others to make reasonable decisions most of the time, and only steps in when no decision is being made, or the chosen course of action is likely to fail or hurt someone. Notable in this regard is Rikka bringing up a story about a prince and a swallow in canon; the prince gives everything of himself for others, but takes no time for his own needs and wants. Eventually it comes down to a swallow to help the prince see his error, and guide him to not be so selfless as to kill himself. Rikka sees this tendency in Mana, and passionately asks to become Mana's swallow. It's not unusual for her to try to help others in a lesser capacity, though. She commonly will help tutor her friends in subjects they're having problems with, step up to take over for someone if there's a problem, and generally be supportive.

You might notice that a lot of the last couple of paragraphs are less about Rikka alone and more about Rikka's relationship with her best friend. And that's honestly part of her personality - Rikka is more than happy to stand in the shadows and support her friends than to stand alone. She can step up and take charge, and she has ambitions of her own, but at the end of the day, she exists for her precious people. It wouldn't be unreasonable to say that Rikka's ambitions are a direct result of her care for her friends; she mentions as much to her parents, though she'll never admit it to her friends themselves. And while she loves her parents, she'll always be by Mana's side, because Mana is the person that was there for her, no matter what.

Whether it's because of her relationship with her BFF or not, Rikka has also displayed a talent for karuta, a Japanese game involving the second halves of famous short poems put onto cards; when the first half is read, the player must find the second half before her opponent. Her reason for liking the game, however, is dubious; she liked the love poems and couldn't stop reading the Hundred Poems. But it's also something she can do for herself - she's not supporting Mana, she's not following her mother, she's just taking up the game for herself. And she honestly enjoys it, even as much as she overextends herself to try and make it happen.

Part of supporting Mana is protecting her when something should happen. Rikka happily will take on any challenge for her dearest friend; before the whole Precure business, she'd argue against anyone, work at any problem, and generally give fully of herself if it would even start to pay Mana back for everything she'd done over the years. Once Rikka had power of her own, she fought as hard as she could stand to protect Cure Heart from danger. Besides, Heart was quite possibly stronger than she was as Diamond, anyway, so she had to make sure Heart survived long enough to do something, right?

Also of note is the jealousy touched on earlier. Rikka starts to notice herself getting angry when Mana befriends Makoto and begins to spend time with her; at a comment from the fourth member of their group, Alice, she realizes she's jealous of Makoto taking time with Mana that used to be hers and hers alone. She recognizes this about herself, and while she tries to suppress it, she's come to realize that she is very possessive of the few things she can truly call "hers".

Any differences: Winter, meanwhile, is a study in what you get when you start with a character that needs her friends to have direction in life... and then take her friends away. Or rather, you make them not ever find her. Winter is shy and withdrawn, as a result of not having social contact for the vast majority of her life up to now. She knows, intellectually, what having a good conversation is. She's read all about it, and mechanically speaking, she happily believes she's an expert. But there's this certain... component, the whole interpersonal contact thing, that books don't explain. And she's coming to realize she's going to have a very hard time learning it this late in her life. That hasn't stopped her from trying, but to date it hasn't gone very well, and Winter is still largely alone on a day-to-day basis. She's starting to lose hope, though not at a fast clip.

Winter's knowledge of things, places, and people is almost entirely from books. She has little to nothing in the way of street smarts. As a result of this, her reactions to popular culture or to sudden situations are generally some combination of confused, panicked, and wrong. She can gladly recite anything you'd need to know from fifty years ago, but if you ask her who sang on last night's episode of American Idol she would be totally lost. She's also a little forgetful of things that aren't knowledge based, and misplaces things somewhat often.

On the whole, Winter is pretty carefree. She doesn't worry too much about the small stuff, and her knowledge gives her confidence that she can handle anything that comes up in school or at home. She's been known to worry when she has to give a speech or other performance of some kind, and like most students she stresses over exams, but even those aren't too severe. She's a slightly playful person, too; she just doesn't have anyone to spend her time with, so she falls back on her books for company. She also prefers not to resort to things like violence - why bother, when she can easily generate a superior position?

Mechanically speaking, the girl has plenty of knowledge that should bring her friends. She takes good care of herself and her appearance, she knows social norms (even if she can't practice them), she's highly intelligent... she just gets ignored. And that hurts her quite a bit. Winter has none of her preincarnation's slightly-thick skin, but she's much better at hiding her feelings. She's cried herself to sleep over being alone at least once. Winter is determined to make something better for herself, though, and she's not going to give up until she has friends of her own!

Abilities: Rikka's only ability of note at home is that she can become a magical girl at will. This is through the power of a Lovely Commune, a device looking not unlike a cell phone. Each of the girls' Communes, though, is the alternate form of a fairy; in their main forms, they look like plushies and can fly, and all have card suit decorations. Rikka's fairy is Raquel, who is blue and has a diamond motif. When she uses Raquel to transform, she becomes Cure Diamond. Simply being in this form raises her dexterity, strength, and toughness, but it also gives her access to special attacks, including Twinkle Diamond, a ranged ice attack, and (with access to her Love Heart Arrow she gets later in canon) Diamond Shower, which similarly freezes enemies but works in an AoE cone (and is also much flashier). Recent canon also gives the girls a team finisher, but since you need a full team for that, it's not exactly going to be useful here. Cure forms are technically disguise forms; the girls go by their titles (Heart, Diamond, Rosetta [club], and Sword [spade]) while transformed, although they do occasionally forget when not around civilians.

Though it's not a great resource, the Precure Wiki has information on Cure Diamond in its article on Rikka. There's not much there, which is why I didn't link it earlier. I'll be happy to expand on this section if you need me to.

Roleplay Sample – Third Person: The door clicked shut behind Winter as she left the room, smiling. Today had been... not necessarily productive - what is, at the end of the school year? - but decent nonetheless. She'd taken good notes on everything that had happened at the student council meeting, and reviewed them before she left. Once she got home, she'd take another look and think over ways to tackle one or two of the more unusual problems for when they met next.

Of course, that was after she got home, which meant she had a little bit of a walk ahead of her. And - wouldn't you know it? - it was raining. Not too heavy, but enough that she couldn't just go through. She'd thought to bring an umbrella this morning, but... where was it? Had she forgotten it somewhere? With a shrug, she reached into her backpack and fished out a simple raincoat, careful to close her pack again afterward. Nothing spectacular, but it would keep her relatively dry. With a moment's effort, she pulled the jacket on and zipped it up, and walked out into the rain, humming to herself and letting a skip creep into her step. Today was going pretty well, all things-

And then she found herself losing traction as she skidded on a puddle, falling backward and landing hard on her side, cushioned somewhat by her backpack. She was a little slow to get up, and one leg was a little scuffed up from the hit on the sidewalk. But after a brief stop to check for further injuries and to get ointment and a bandage out of a side pocket of her bag (from a fairly large stack in a small first-aid kit), she continued on her way, at a more sedate pace. 'I hope this doesn't scar... the last one just went away.'

Making the last turn coming up to her house, Winter smiled wide as she saw her mother was home, taking off for the door again, unconcerned with the dull ache on her left side. She wanted to tell her mom all about her day, and just be happy to see her. Her paperwork could wait.

Roleplay Sample - Network: I-I... um... I wanted to ask a question...

[There's a brief pause as the girl frowns, before slapping her palms against her cheeks lightly and taking a deep breath, muttering something to herself that the network doesn't pick up.]

So... I'm thinking about taking a little trip to the beach later. It's been hot lately, and I think a swim might be good for me. But... I don't want to go alone... um...

[Winter pokes her fingertips together, in an easy-to-spot nervous tell. It's almost cute to watch.]

W-would anyone want to go with me? I promise I'll try not to be awkward, and... um.

[Face coloring in embarassment at not being able to make a good statement, the girl reaches out and cuts off the feed, face scrunched up in shame.]

Any Questions? Somewhere down the line, Winter will need to recover (individually) her fairy Raquel and her Cure Lovies in order to actually have powers. Raquel is a "pet" in the sense that he belongs to Rikka, but he's very much a sentient creature; there's not nearly enough there to app him (yet), but I figured I'd mention it now and make sure I'd be cool to take him back over the course of several Echoes in the future.