Samantha Riley [Student]

PERSONALITY

First impressions can be misleading. Around strangers Sam can be quiet, withdrawn. Combining that with her appearance tends to be intimidating. In truth she’s anxious, often feeling like everyone else is using a social playbook she doesn’t know or understand. Diagnosed with ADHD and autism, she’s tried to be more open, but a lifetime of troubled conditioning doesn’t just disappear, and she struggles with doubts about her nature and identity.

Around those she’s gotten comfortable with she can seem like a different person. She smiles and is very affectionate at the drop of a hat, to the point she sometimes forgets to ask if someone likes being touched. Life is meant to be happy in her book and she wants to make as many people smile as she can. She has a fierce instinct to protect people, and has big heart for any around her, even taking the time to talk and listen to criminals. Sam is also quite a dork, reading manga, seeing movies, and playing tabletop games, and she’ll rope in any dorm mates she can into it. That being said, larger crowds and parties wear her out socially, if she doesn’t immediately find them intimidating. While she has trouble focusing on conversations that don’t carry direct interest, when she is engaged her enthusiasm is infectious, from philosophy to the next Kamen Rider she is deeply thoughtful and analytical.

There are flashes though, of the troubles that lie under the surface. Sam is very intelligent but struggles to express it academically. She can come across as lazy as tasks have a higher mental load for her. She tends to talk bluntly, which can class with more traditional cultural norms and wears her feelings openly, leading her to hide when frustrated so she doesn’t snap at people. Most of all though, she’s scared. Scared of herself, scared of hurting others scared of rejection and being alone, and scared of being the monster her quirk seems determined to make her given that there have been many accidents in her past, none fatal, but enough to spook her. She struggles to accept her size and focus enough to control her movements to avoid damage. She struggles to feel appealing when she looks like a monster.

It is easy to sum up Sam’s life as unremarkable, a journey that many people past and present take every day. But to Sam it has been an amazing journey, filled with joys, tragedy, and self-discovery. And while she has some regrets and some traumas, she’d overall say her life has been a good one.

Born in Melbourne, Australia, to two engineers, Sam’s life, while not opulent, has never been wanting. Sent to private schools, living in good neighbourhoods, and meeting the extended family for Christmas each year, she’s never lacked support and love, though she’d admit she hasn’t always realised it.

Her quirk didn’t manifest immediately, but at two years old, she started gaining scales and bony growths on her spine as her tail grew out. Her growth rate also began to accelerate, leaving her sized 3 years older than she was.

It was shortly after this, bullies began to target her, for her freakish appearance, awkward demeanour, and lack of aggression back. Sam would just absorb the words and teasing, usually finding only one or two other students to befriend. But those friendships were strong, as she would share her whole life with those close to her. It was also the beginning of a long line accidents, where Sam found herself constantly bumping people over or breaking things. During sports classes she had occasionally broken someone’s arm or leg, and was eventually asked to stop participating.

Being a prominent civil engineer, her father moved around for work, and after divorcing her mother, Sam sometimes moved too, repeating the cycle of anxiety and bullying. She felt particularly intimidated by her father, who’s strong work ethic made her feel undisciplined and lazy for struggling to do her home, despite high academic grades, and chores, despite acknowledging their need.

It was her online friends, the ones that stayed after each move that helped her sort out her uncomfortable feelings and finally talk with him when she was 12. She talked about her hatred for the body her quirk had given her and the feelings in her mind. Despite stressing out expecting rejection, he instead hugged and offered to help.

It was a discussion that changed her life. Together they found a psychiatrist that diagnosed her with autism and ADHD. While initially unsure what to think, she found it gave her new confidence, because she wasn’t lazy or weak, just wired differently. She still struggles with the conditions, and spending most of her life feeling like a bad person, but now she can talk about it and hope folks understand. This newform self-awareness also helped her to realise she was a girl (She had been born a boy but tends to think of her past in feminine terms).

But this newfound confidence brought new questions to her head, and ones she couldn’t easily answer, like what made a person good instead of average? She looked up to her local heroes, who made people feel safe and happy, but never really considered it for herself. It would be a villain incident that changed that.

A month before Sam’s 15th birthday, two crooks held up the store she was in. One shot needles, while the other had the strength of a bull. They held up the store she was in. Seeing the fear on everyone’s faces galvanised Sam to action and she tried to take them on. Needleman fired at some of the other shoppers, and Sam got in the way, several embedding in her back while most dinged off her spinal plates. She tried flailing her tail at them (later learning she’d trashed more of the store with this than they did) before bull grabbed it and used it to swing her overhead and aware from the other civilians. The impact had nailed Sam’s bone spines into the ground left her woozy. When her senses returned, a local hero was helping to pry her up. Apparently, she’d delayed the crook long enough for a hero and the police to show up.

The hero sat with Sam while waiting for her parents, gently admonishing the danger she’d put herself in. Sam asked about being a hero, and what it meant to be a good person. He didn’t have an answer but suggested that if she was going to consider doing this again, she should learn to do it properly.

It would be several days before Sam’s parents broached the subject of hero school, citing how unhappy she was with her quirk, but how giddy she’d been after the incident. It could be helpful, and if it didn’t work out, then they’d help her find another path. She agreed, but lamented it’d be another year before she could sign up with an Australian school. Her mother, an aviation engineer pointed out that due to the later start, Japan’s hero schools would be accepting applications soon, and Sam had studied Japanese in order to watch more anime.

After a rocky evaluation but helped by a letter from the hero she spoke with, Sam, much to her own surprise, was admitted to U.A. Academy. Filled with more fear than excitement, she hugged her family one last time outside the gates and marched in. It wouldn’t be easy, but maybe.. she could make it work.

THE ARMORY

Hero Costume: Sam hasn't really settled on her hero identity yet, and as a result her costume is a fairly plain armoured one piece.

• Eye visor: Contains built in communications gear and protects her eyes from particles and debris, but not directed attacks. They are intended to protect in similar ways to industrial impact, and while a blunt attack is more likely to dislodge than damage, generally they'll shatter after an attack.
  
• Armour: Plates on the chest and upper arms suitable to resist up to low to medium calibur rounds. The material is slash resistant, able to resist needles and small knives. Does not cover her forearms, head, or tail.
  
• Waterproof pouches on the legs contain first aid supplies.
  

QUIRK & SKILLS

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Kaiju

TYPE: Mutant
RANK/LEVEL: D-
SUMMARY:
Based on Sam's knowledge, Kaiju bestows its user with the physical traits of a kaiju, giant monsters that would wreck entire cities. It gives the user a ridge of sturdy plates down their back, protective scales, thick claws increased size and physical traits, sharp teeth, and a long powerful tail. At least, that’s the theory. As a mutation type quirk, its power depends on the capability of the wielder. Sam is terrified of her quirk, trying to suppress it whenever she can. As a result, it’s largely underdeveloped and unexplored.

Currently her back plates and tail are the most developed with the plates able to stop a bullet, albeit suffering a large amount of damage in the process and only covering a third of her back width. Each mounts one of her 'spines' composed of the  same material and has about the same height. One bullet will be stopped, but will crack the plate, so that future attacks on the exact same spot bypass it. 3 bullets will shatter the plate, negating its protection entirely (and hurting a lot to boot). Her tail is coated in scales and can be used to help her balance on unstable ground or swung in an attack as it is about her height in length. However, it lacks the flexibility to grip or manipulate objects. Her scales have the flexibility of soft leather and are tougher than regular skin, giving protection similar to an alligators or honey badgers skin. Angled correctly, they are very effective against blades, causing the sharp edge to just skip over the surface.

WEAKNESSES/LIMITATIONS:
Quirk:
Scales: Sam’s scales haven’t been toughed and so offer no protection against bludgeoning attacks and are only mildly effective again piercing, which pushes the scales aside. Strong attacks will sheer off the scales, rendering that section unarmoured for the rest of the thread or until a healing quirk is applied (depending on the nature of the quirk). Strong in this case could be a sword strike that catches the edge of the scales, a small concussive strike (like a small fireball, big enough to impact, but small enough she's not sent flying) or superstrength punch. Their coverage is concentrated on Sam’s limbs, with very limited coverage of her torso (see reference). She has nasty habit of getting her back rigids embedded in something, needing help to extract herself.

Blind Attack: Currently Sam’s best defence and offence is on her back, in the form of her back plates and tail. Using them means turning around so she can’t see what her opponent is doing.

Cold Blooded: Sam’s anatomy is similar to that of a lizard, requiring external temperature regulation. While fine in the general Japanese climate, she gets sleepier in winter and in artificially cold temperatures such as heavy air conditioning or repeated cold attacks, will struggle to remain conscious. Without heavy insulation, in winter she can last 4 posts before struggling too much to be an effective combatant. Strangely though, she still has a thermal signature.

Large size: Both an aid and a hinderance, Sam’s size and profile make it difficult for her to fit into a standard doorway and she struggles with manoeuvrability in most interior rooms and doorways. Being unused to combat, she rarely compensates her balance for swinging her tail and makes an easy target to strike. Combined with Blind Attack, she struggles to avoid causing collateral damage and is extremely hesitant to engage with nearby people or animals for fear of accidental injury.

Personal:
ADHD: While not often a hinderance for straight up fighting, Sam’s ADHD makes it difficult for her perform tasks that do not engage her head, like stakeouts or drills, making it very hard to practice or remain quiet. She also struggles with long term or intricate planning, leading her to be impulsive. It makes it very difficult to form the good lifestyle habit she needs to improve.

Fitness: In trying to avoid more injuries and accidents and struggling with a self-destructive body image, Sam has shied away from improving her physique. It is only by virtue of her quirk that she matches up to the other students physically, though her endurance is still lacking.

RANK/LEVEL: C
SUMMARY:
When Sam's primary school offered first aid training for students, she leapt at it. In the 5 years since she's made sure to constantly update her qualificaitons so that she can help folks. She can perform a basic medical assessment and priotization of cases, as well as stabalise critical victims at the scene. She also uses some of the concepts to guide her hero actions.

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RANK/LEVEL: D+
SUMMARY:
One of the few things Sam's been able to focus enough on to practice, intermittantly. She can read sheet music and understand notation and pitch. She keeps exceptional timing and is very good at following a rhythm.

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RANK/LEVEL: C+
SUMMARY:
Sam has a talent for systems and puzzles. She loves games and stories and is an avid gamer, though with more of a preference for physical games. She regularly tries to recruit other students into games and campaigns.

Mechafox

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