AKI LI [STUDENT]

THE BASICS

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

his quirk excepted, aki’s been blessed with a combination of good genes from both his parents. with perfectly-coiffed hair and striking dark eyes, he’s always been the sort to turn heads, even when suspended in the lanky, knock-kneed throes of puberty. there’s something about him that reeks of expensive, and it’s not just the perfume he spritzes on himself every morning. his posture is almost perfect, peppered with just enough sideways slouching to toe the lines of good taste -- all cocked head and belligerent smile, the sort of made-to-measure rebellion that is nothing if not deliberately calculated. outside of school, his fashion sense tends towards what he calls minimalist chic; neutral-coloured button-downs, cardigans, and pants (and his gloves) -- all, of course, luxury brands. most people just call it rich-ass prick.

(all that said, he is, sadly, just a tad short -- but it's nothing a heel lift or two can't fix.) 

PERSONALITY

if his parents weren’t so enamored by the prestige of pro heroism, aki could easily make a living off showbiz. he is his father’s son: a bona fide performer on- and off-stage, carrying himself with a perpetual and carefully-crafted nonchalance. to most, it looks like he breezes through life. he is the sort of student who spends most of the lesson doodling in the margins of his textbook, yet still has the correct answer prepared when called on by the teacher, recited with just the right amount of glibness to have eyebrows quirking in his direction. as with most things he does, it’s a calculated effortlessness: he stuffs any shred of vulnerability deep into his pockets with his lint and loose change, keeps any display of weakness behind closed doors -- does his revision late into the night, accompanied by the lamplight of his dorm room.

deep, deep under his mask, he may be a little bit bitter, a little bit resentful, a little bit crumbling under the weight of his family’s expectations. but, it’s not something he admits to himself, much less airs out in public. to himself and to all others concerned, he is just the semi-famous rich snob coasting his way through ua’s hero management course. that’s all there is to it, and all that there has to be.

BACKGROUND HISTORY

when li yu, the up-and-coming soon-to-be ceo of a major chinese broadcasting conglomerate (then, “rising pheonix media”, recently rebranded as “freebird universal”), married the part-time diplomatic ambassador, full-time a-list japanese actor tatsunari takei, their wedding made business and entertainment news headlines. the birth of their eldest son, taiga, six months later was similarly well-received by the press. li bin bin, bursting into the scene eight years late, was graced with less fanfare upon his arrival to the hospital’s maternity ward. nonetheless, the child was raised with a silver spoon in his mouth, and with tabloids tracing his every toddling movement thereafter.

with high-flying socialites for parents, it was hard not to expect greatness from these boys. their adolescent years were a smorgasbord of supplementary lessons and formal dinners; of sitting pretty for interviews and dodging paparazzi. li yu had a fifteen-step plan for her offspring’s future success. taiga, for his part, was the model firstborn, living up to those expectations with verve and vigor: he was accepted into ua, and left a pro hero, scouted upon graduation by a prominent hero agency. bin bin -- or, as he would call later himself, aki -- waddled in his brother’s footsteps until his quirk surfaced, where he rapidly swerved off the path. a mishap when he was six resulted in a portion of his wrist chipping off. reconnecting the damaged tissue required extensive surgery, and the trauma left him terrified of using his quirk.

his quirk’s unpredictability made him far from hero material -- but there were still expectations. though the course his mother charted for him in his infancy turned out unfeasible, there were still other paths left to take, some other way to grasp at greatness.  she regrouped, rewrote her spreadsheets -- and aki found himself corralled back into his brother’s shadow. he was enrolled into the academy’s hero management course; if you can’t be them, join them in a somewhat oblique and roundabout fashion, right?

THE ARMORY

QUIRK & SKILLS

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BEND/BREAK

TYPE: emitter
RANK/LEVEL: f
SUMMARY:
for as long as more than 50% of the skin on aki’s hand is in contact with one object, the object’s malleability and fortitude is temporarily altered. the exact change is, however, a crapshoot; he has no control over the results: the object he touches could become hard and impervious to damage -- like turning a wad of wet tissue paper into a rock; or, ductile and pliant -- like turning a rock into a ball of grey dough; or, brittle -- like turning a ball of grey dough into glass. when aki is not consciously pushing the effect of his quirk, its range typically only extends to ten centimeters. consciously pushing his ability requires significant focus; at his current skill level, his maximum range reaches slightly past half a meter.

WEAKNESSES/LIMITATIONS:
regardless of whether he wants to or not, his quirk will activate when more than 50% of the skin on his hand is in contact with an object. his quirk will only last as long as he maintains contact; as soon as he breaks contact, the object instantaneously returns to its original state. currently, his quirk only affects inorganic objects.

extending the radius of his quirk involves significant mental focus. to widen the range of his quirk, he envisions himself “pushing” at the outer edges of the quirk’s area-of-affect; it takes 3 posts for him to reach his maximum range. he can start "pushing" the radius before he touches the object, but he will not be able to move during that period. the area-of-effect immediately retracts to its base radius of ten centimeters when he is distracted, and he must start again from square one. due to his lack of practice, it is extremely easy to break his focus.

upon losing contact with the object, his skill temporarily rebounds back into his arms. whatever effect he applied on the object now affects the entire forearm of the hand he used: with soften, his arm is a hyperflexible, jelly-like mess; with harden, it becomes almost impervious to damage… but his wrist and elbow joints are also immovable; with brittle, it’s a disaster waiting to happen. the minimum duration of the rebound is 1 post, and, at his maximum range, the rebound lasts 3 posts

under the effects of the rebound, his quirk will still activate when the minimum area of skin contact is achieved. when multiple rebounds stack, the effect is a prolonged period of brittleness (rest of thread). 

RANK/LEVEL: c+ 
SUMMARY:
aki is used to having his every move scrutinized by the media. he’s learnt how to put his best face forward; a practitioner of the careful art of smile-and-non-answer, even when fielding the most disparaging remarks. he might accidentally turn things to putty sometimes, but his mask is rock-hard on the best and worst of days. it takes a lot to shake him out of his devil-may-care, hoity-toity facade.

RANK/LEVEL: c+
SUMMARY:
his parents planned it out impeccably; li yu would only speak to her sons in mandarin chinese, and takei tatsunari would only grace his children with responses if they spoke to him in japanese. weekends were an exception: the family would converse in english. aki thinks it's all a load of codswallop.

RANK/LEVEL: c 
SUMMARY:
a former child model, aki maintains some loose connections with the fashion industry. he supplements his pocket money by taking up part-time modelling jobs for various fashion magazines.

SOCKS

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