Post by Candy Akiyama on Jan 14, 2015 11:57:37 GMT -5
Full Name: Candace Akiyama
Aliases: Candy
Avatar Photo:
Age: 9 (started at 8)
Race: Mixed (Japanese, One-Quarter English)
Gender: Female
Height: 4'5" (Was 4'3”)
Appearance: 61lbs, light olive complexion, dark brown eyes, straight, black hair past her shoulders with feathered bangs. Burn scar on right forearm.
Clothing: Bright red sundress with white polkadots of varied size printed all over, old white tennis shoes, flower-printed socks, plastic princess tiara from Disney World
Alignment: Neutral Good
Occupation: Former Elementary School Student
Where they are from: Orlando, FL (Originally Sunnyvale, CA)
Relationships: Parents: George Akiyama (Deceased before Apocalypse) and Jennifer Akiyama (Deceased before Apocalypse), Grandparents: Sayuri Akiyama (Deceased before Apocalypse), Makoto Akiyama (Deceased long before Apocalypse), Aunt: Carmen Ito (Unknown), Grandparents: Emma Ito (Deceased long before Apocalypse) and Takayuki Ito (Deceased long before Apocalypse), Great-grandparents: Akiyama Ichiro (Deceased long before Apocalypse) and Akiyama Etsuko (Deceased long before Apocalypse) Foster Uncle: Danial Raycook
Weapons: None
Items: Stuffed animal (Flopsy, terrycloth rabbit from parents - former eldest councilor) (Lost Toys:Hannah, plush snow leopard; Jasmine, baby doll; Pinky, pink plush lamb; Daisy, Daisy Duck plush toy), (Other Lost Stuff: card pink swimsuit, red cardigan sweater, crayons, paper, pencil, small order pads, pink backpack)
Personality: Quiet, Contemplative, Meticulous and Gifted. She prefers to keep things clean and organized, so despite liking to build things, dirt, grease and germs are things she would prefer to avoid. In the zombie apocalypse there's certain level of dirt and grime she has been forced to adapt to. Normally quiet, she is extra shy and quiet around those unfamiliar to her.
Special Skills and Strengths: Mathematics wiz for her age, her love and need to to find and create patterns often channels itself into building things. That translates into a minor mechanical aptitude. Quick reflexes.
Weaknesses and Flaws: She has no combat ability whatsoever. She is of average height for her age, though still on the shorter side of average, tough that can work to her advantage at times, more often than not, it is to her detriment. Physical strength will never be one of her advantages.
Prior to the Apocalypse: Candy's family came from Japan to the United States before World War II. Her great-grandparents, but especially her great-grandfather, Akiyama Ichiro, were interned along with the rest of their families after the attack on Pearl Harbor. This despite Ichiro and others like him being Nisei, the first of their family to be born and raised entirely on American soil. Ichiro did meet his future wife at the Manzanar internment camp in California. They decided together, this wouldn't happen again. They would make sure they own family was so American, it couldn't possibly happen again. From World War II on, the Akiyama family name came after their children's given names, and the Japanese language would go unknown to succeeding generations.
It was when Candace was born, that her parents had decided the pendulum set in motion so long ago, had swung too far. They barely knew their own cultural roots themselves, and dreaded their little girl losing any more sense of where she came from. They never really tried to teach her Japanese, sticking more to simple traditions they could fit into everyday life. Since Candace had an English grandmother, they didn't push things that Candace's mother, Jennifer, was not comfortable with.
Candace, usually called Candy by almost everyone in her family, was born and lived the first four years of her life in Sunnyvale, CA. Just shy of her fifth birthday, her dad's job made he whole family move to Orlando, FL. Her paternal grandmother, Sayura Akiyama, the only living grandparent she had ever known had only died three months before, it was a fresh start for the whole family. Candy never knew her other grandparents.
Five months after her fifth birthday, Candy's parents died asleep in bed in a house fire. An electrical short in the master bathroom of their house, sparked a blaze that spread rapidly and trapped them before the smoke alarms could wake them. The smoke alarms did their job for Candy though. She awoke, running terrified out into the hallway to find her parents, but was already too late. The heat drove her back from her parent's room, and she huddled at window in the living room. If the firefighters had not found her, she would have perished too.
Now a ward of the State of Florida, Candy spent the next three years in and out of different foster families. Never a much of an outgoing child to begin with, Candy coped by withdrawing into her own private fantasy world, and she learned to create her own sense of order in keeping whatever place was her room at the time fairly neat and tidy.
If anything was ever out of place, it was not long before she would slip it back into its place.
She had an affinity for numbers and math early on, and from that it almost became a game to her to see how many different ways she could arrange or rearrange her rooms. She had a quite a number different rooms to practice in those three years before the Apocalypse hit. Her fervent interest in math and the numeric patterns found in it drove her academic levels many times above her age level. Outside of mathematics though, she was still very much a bereaved little girl in an overburdened foster care system, so she never skipped any grades. Her love of numbers and rearranging things also led her to figuring out how things work, as long as she didn't have to get too dirty doing it, or could clean up as she went along.
In her fantasy world, she is Princess Candy, exiled ruler of a lost kingdom. Her court is made up of a collection of stuffed animals and dolls collected over the three years from different foster families. Her most trusted adviser was a stuffed terrycloth bunny her parents had given her. She and her court of stuffed animal advisers scoured the four corners of Florida for her lost kingdom. If her only living relative, Aunt Carmen Ito, hadn't constantly been in and out of drug rehab, Princess Candy might have had a much smaller court of advisers, and found her lost kingdom back in California. Every time the princess thought she had her lost kingdom, it was time to move again.
The fire left physical, mental and emotional scars on Candy. Most of her burns were minor and healed up, but her right forearm bears a burn scar characterized by blotchy discoloration and bumpiness from contraction of the scarred tissue. The discolored and bumpy patches are both lighter and darker than the rest of her still healthy light olive skin. The scar only added to the emotional problems she developed in the foster care system. Other children often ostracized and taunted her for it in school. They never turned against her solely because of the scar, it was just something to heap on top of being weird, quiet and new. She was already acting out when she could not keep any sense of control or got overwhelmed. It added up to developing a reputation and history of biting and hitting. Like many other foster children considered troubled, she never stayed long with any one foster home. None of having either the time or the patience to figuring out how to turn this particular little girl around.
Her last foster family would be the ones to start to turn Candy around, helping her find other ways to express her emotions than biting and hitting. They recognized her coping mechanisms for what they were. When she was finally allowed her own space to control and keep as she saw fit, the little girl lashed out. A calm and understanding home life help give her focus enough to use her words where teeth or frustrated/angry little fists where her answer before.
Post Apocalypse: If anything positive can be said about Candy being orphaned before the Apocalypse even started, it would be the experience in handling emotional and mental trauma. An advantage she would trade a billion jillion times over to have her mom and dad through all this. And only an advantage because of the Raycooks.
Making her way from her last foster family to her new family of Apocalypse survivors is really no different for her either than the last three years of her life. Just now there are zombies in it. Except maybe where she grew quiet after her parents died in the house fire, the horror of her dream trip to Disney World turned inside out would drive her mute to everyone but her foster uncle, Danny and her circle of stuffed animal friends and dolls.
If anyone other than Danny is around she has a tendency to whisper what she wants to say to him, even to ask another adult a question. She has not adored, looked up to and counted on anyone as much as she does her foster uncle since her parents. With his help, she may yet find her lost kingdom in a group in Miami, Princess Candy maybe finally found her lost kingdom. The world falling to pieces, Humanity possibly on the verge of extinction, and Princess Candy finds what she couldn't find in three years before civilization collapsed.
Candy not having much in the way of her own survival skills is entirely dependent on the adults around her for food and protection. At the same time, being exceptionally gifted in mathematics, being almost obsessive compulsive in organizing things, and having some ability to figure out how mechanical things work; she is not dead weight. This little girl often volunteers to be an extra set of hands, when she can and helps out in keeping group's inventory in order. She can keep track of most of the communal inventory in her head. She also keeps binoculars for surveying her kingdom, it inventory and surroundings.
Aliases: Candy
Avatar Photo:
Age: 9 (started at 8)
Race: Mixed (Japanese, One-Quarter English)
Gender: Female
Height: 4'5" (Was 4'3”)
Appearance: 61lbs, light olive complexion, dark brown eyes, straight, black hair past her shoulders with feathered bangs. Burn scar on right forearm.
Clothing: Bright red sundress with white polkadots of varied size printed all over, old white tennis shoes, flower-printed socks, plastic princess tiara from Disney World
Alignment: Neutral Good
Occupation: Former Elementary School Student
Where they are from: Orlando, FL (Originally Sunnyvale, CA)
Relationships: Parents: George Akiyama (Deceased before Apocalypse) and Jennifer Akiyama (Deceased before Apocalypse), Grandparents: Sayuri Akiyama (Deceased before Apocalypse), Makoto Akiyama (Deceased long before Apocalypse), Aunt: Carmen Ito (Unknown), Grandparents: Emma Ito (Deceased long before Apocalypse) and Takayuki Ito (Deceased long before Apocalypse), Great-grandparents: Akiyama Ichiro (Deceased long before Apocalypse) and Akiyama Etsuko (Deceased long before Apocalypse) Foster Uncle: Danial Raycook
Weapons: None
Items: Stuffed animal (Flopsy, terrycloth rabbit from parents - former eldest councilor) (Lost Toys:Hannah, plush snow leopard; Jasmine, baby doll; Pinky, pink plush lamb; Daisy, Daisy Duck plush toy), (Other Lost Stuff: card pink swimsuit, red cardigan sweater, crayons, paper, pencil, small order pads, pink backpack)
Personality: Quiet, Contemplative, Meticulous and Gifted. She prefers to keep things clean and organized, so despite liking to build things, dirt, grease and germs are things she would prefer to avoid. In the zombie apocalypse there's certain level of dirt and grime she has been forced to adapt to. Normally quiet, she is extra shy and quiet around those unfamiliar to her.
Special Skills and Strengths: Mathematics wiz for her age, her love and need to to find and create patterns often channels itself into building things. That translates into a minor mechanical aptitude. Quick reflexes.
Weaknesses and Flaws: She has no combat ability whatsoever. She is of average height for her age, though still on the shorter side of average, tough that can work to her advantage at times, more often than not, it is to her detriment. Physical strength will never be one of her advantages.
Prior to the Apocalypse: Candy's family came from Japan to the United States before World War II. Her great-grandparents, but especially her great-grandfather, Akiyama Ichiro, were interned along with the rest of their families after the attack on Pearl Harbor. This despite Ichiro and others like him being Nisei, the first of their family to be born and raised entirely on American soil. Ichiro did meet his future wife at the Manzanar internment camp in California. They decided together, this wouldn't happen again. They would make sure they own family was so American, it couldn't possibly happen again. From World War II on, the Akiyama family name came after their children's given names, and the Japanese language would go unknown to succeeding generations.
It was when Candace was born, that her parents had decided the pendulum set in motion so long ago, had swung too far. They barely knew their own cultural roots themselves, and dreaded their little girl losing any more sense of where she came from. They never really tried to teach her Japanese, sticking more to simple traditions they could fit into everyday life. Since Candace had an English grandmother, they didn't push things that Candace's mother, Jennifer, was not comfortable with.
Candace, usually called Candy by almost everyone in her family, was born and lived the first four years of her life in Sunnyvale, CA. Just shy of her fifth birthday, her dad's job made he whole family move to Orlando, FL. Her paternal grandmother, Sayura Akiyama, the only living grandparent she had ever known had only died three months before, it was a fresh start for the whole family. Candy never knew her other grandparents.
Five months after her fifth birthday, Candy's parents died asleep in bed in a house fire. An electrical short in the master bathroom of their house, sparked a blaze that spread rapidly and trapped them before the smoke alarms could wake them. The smoke alarms did their job for Candy though. She awoke, running terrified out into the hallway to find her parents, but was already too late. The heat drove her back from her parent's room, and she huddled at window in the living room. If the firefighters had not found her, she would have perished too.
Now a ward of the State of Florida, Candy spent the next three years in and out of different foster families. Never a much of an outgoing child to begin with, Candy coped by withdrawing into her own private fantasy world, and she learned to create her own sense of order in keeping whatever place was her room at the time fairly neat and tidy.
If anything was ever out of place, it was not long before she would slip it back into its place.
She had an affinity for numbers and math early on, and from that it almost became a game to her to see how many different ways she could arrange or rearrange her rooms. She had a quite a number different rooms to practice in those three years before the Apocalypse hit. Her fervent interest in math and the numeric patterns found in it drove her academic levels many times above her age level. Outside of mathematics though, she was still very much a bereaved little girl in an overburdened foster care system, so she never skipped any grades. Her love of numbers and rearranging things also led her to figuring out how things work, as long as she didn't have to get too dirty doing it, or could clean up as she went along.
In her fantasy world, she is Princess Candy, exiled ruler of a lost kingdom. Her court is made up of a collection of stuffed animals and dolls collected over the three years from different foster families. Her most trusted adviser was a stuffed terrycloth bunny her parents had given her. She and her court of stuffed animal advisers scoured the four corners of Florida for her lost kingdom. If her only living relative, Aunt Carmen Ito, hadn't constantly been in and out of drug rehab, Princess Candy might have had a much smaller court of advisers, and found her lost kingdom back in California. Every time the princess thought she had her lost kingdom, it was time to move again.
The fire left physical, mental and emotional scars on Candy. Most of her burns were minor and healed up, but her right forearm bears a burn scar characterized by blotchy discoloration and bumpiness from contraction of the scarred tissue. The discolored and bumpy patches are both lighter and darker than the rest of her still healthy light olive skin. The scar only added to the emotional problems she developed in the foster care system. Other children often ostracized and taunted her for it in school. They never turned against her solely because of the scar, it was just something to heap on top of being weird, quiet and new. She was already acting out when she could not keep any sense of control or got overwhelmed. It added up to developing a reputation and history of biting and hitting. Like many other foster children considered troubled, she never stayed long with any one foster home. None of having either the time or the patience to figuring out how to turn this particular little girl around.
Her last foster family would be the ones to start to turn Candy around, helping her find other ways to express her emotions than biting and hitting. They recognized her coping mechanisms for what they were. When she was finally allowed her own space to control and keep as she saw fit, the little girl lashed out. A calm and understanding home life help give her focus enough to use her words where teeth or frustrated/angry little fists where her answer before.
Post Apocalypse: If anything positive can be said about Candy being orphaned before the Apocalypse even started, it would be the experience in handling emotional and mental trauma. An advantage she would trade a billion jillion times over to have her mom and dad through all this. And only an advantage because of the Raycooks.
Making her way from her last foster family to her new family of Apocalypse survivors is really no different for her either than the last three years of her life. Just now there are zombies in it. Except maybe where she grew quiet after her parents died in the house fire, the horror of her dream trip to Disney World turned inside out would drive her mute to everyone but her foster uncle, Danny and her circle of stuffed animal friends and dolls.
If anyone other than Danny is around she has a tendency to whisper what she wants to say to him, even to ask another adult a question. She has not adored, looked up to and counted on anyone as much as she does her foster uncle since her parents. With his help, she may yet find her lost kingdom in a group in Miami, Princess Candy maybe finally found her lost kingdom. The world falling to pieces, Humanity possibly on the verge of extinction, and Princess Candy finds what she couldn't find in three years before civilization collapsed.
Candy not having much in the way of her own survival skills is entirely dependent on the adults around her for food and protection. At the same time, being exceptionally gifted in mathematics, being almost obsessive compulsive in organizing things, and having some ability to figure out how mechanical things work; she is not dead weight. This little girl often volunteers to be an extra set of hands, when she can and helps out in keeping group's inventory in order. She can keep track of most of the communal inventory in her head. She also keeps binoculars for surveying her kingdom, it inventory and surroundings.