井上 織姫 ⋆ Inoue Orihime

OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Player Name: CD
Player Journal: crystaldawn
Age: 32
Contact: sailorn1@aol.com Tomcat Claws @ AIM or holyfight
Characters Played: None!

IN CHARACTER INFORMATION
Name: Orihime Inoue
Canon: Bleach
OU/AU/OC: OU
Canon Point: Chapter 546, while training in Hueco Mundo with Chad
History: http://bleach.wikia.com/wiki/Orihime_Inoue

Personality: At first blush, Orihime might seem a bit like a ditz. The side of herself that she chooses to show to everyone (particularly her friends) is happy-go-lucky, cheerful, helpful, and very friendly. She's overwhelmingly kind and fairly innocent and tends to invoke a protective response in those around her. This doesn't mean she's stupid or childish by any means; she's third in her class overall and can be quite pragmatic and creative in battle situations. But she does lack a certain degree of self-awareness and "street smarts" that might make it seem otherwise. She also has a unique appetite, often making food based on puns or just plain strange combinations (like honey wasabi ramen or egg parfait over rice or even mackeral bread - a pun on yakisoba bread, a popular Japanese fast food).

She has a vivid, overactive imagination that seems to be inspired a lot by television and those around her often see flashes of it at the oddest times. It seems to work faster than her mouth in a lot of cases - in one instance, she's asked by her best friend Tatsuki whether she's ever been to the park with their mutual friend Ichigo, and this ends in her telling herself to watch out because someone has a gun. It's not that Orihime automatically went park=>guns; she had a (somewhat) natural thought progression from being in the park with Ichigo, to racing Ichigo to the teeter-totter, to racing Ichigo in the Olympics, to winning the track and field competition, to winning the world heavyweight title, to an assassin in the crowd at the boxing match. Likewise, when her class is assigned to make pictures of themselves in "the future", Orihime takes the assignment figuratively instead of literally. Instead of drawing herself as she imagines she'll be in the real future, she draws herself in a Jetsons-esque robot-and-flying-car "future" as a hyper-destructive robot. It isn't that Orihime thinks she will really become a giant robot; it's that she imagined herself in a creative, "futuristic" way. This strange imagination also comes out with perfect comedic timing to break tense situations - for instance, during an argument between Ichigo and Tatsuki, Orihime interrupts them just to ask how her personal themesong should go. This just goes to show that she is not only somewhat self-aware of her personality quirks, but that she can use them at will.

When you look past the silliness and the overactive imagination, however, Orihime's inner self is much more down-to-earth and actually quite insecure. She's very critical of herself after she develops powers, especially. Her powers, the Shun-Shun Rikka, have three functions: healing, shielding, and cutting. Of these three, her most powerful ability is the ability to heal. However, that is often looked over in favor of more offensive abilities, and as such, Orihime sees herself as being less useful in battle than her friends. The actual truth of the matter could not be further from this; Orihime is invaluable to her friends as a healer, and has saved most of them from death or horrible injury at least once. These healing powers were even the premise Aizen, the series big bad, used to kidnap her (although his true purpose was simply to lure her friends into his base), because they not only heal, but can reverse any event that happened to an object at all. Still, Orihime has a tendency to be very critical of herself for not contributing enough to the offensive side of battle.

She doesn't like for her friends to see any of these weaknesses, though. In fact, in her very first story arc, she outright states that she didn't want her own brother to see her sadness or tears because she didn't want him to worry about her; the same logic applies to her friends. Any insecurity, fear, or doubt she has wouldn't come out often in interactions with other characters unless she really trusted them, so it won't be seen often by others. For the most part, those who interact with her will see a happy, somewhat dopey, very creative teenage girl.

Another facet of Orihime's personality that bears mentioning is her loyalty to her friends and the strength of their friendship. When her friend Rukia was taken back to Soul Society and Ichigo had doubts as to whether he should go get her back, Orihime was the one who talked him into it. And when she though that Ichigo might like Rukia for more than friends, even though Orihime was jealous, she took the burden and blamed herself for being jealous because of how much she cared for Rukia. And when Rukia was attacked and presumed dead in Hueco Mundo, Orihime screamed to be released from her cell so she could heal her. The first time her powers activated was because her best friend Tatsuki was in trouble; she stated then that she would never forgive anyone who hurt Tatsuki. And when Aizen's henchman, Ulquiorra, threatened to kill all of her friends, she willingly traded her freedom (and what she presumed would be her life altogether) for their continued safety.

Finally, Orihime's crush on Kurosaki Ichigo, the series protagonist, should be mentioned. Tatsuki points out that Orihime has a crush on him in her very first appearance in chapter two and this crush persists throughout the series until the present time. Although Orihime can let her imagination run away with her (for example, recently imagining Ichigo normally inviting her into his room as him being dressed in a host outfit and emitting sparkles), she has demonstrated that she can understand Ichigo on a personal level. Part of what gave her her powers was his own incredible spiritual pressure (in concert with the hougyoku, the series' resident MacGuffin), and the wish to protect him was what helped her learn to summon and use them at will. She can track his spiritual pressure when no one else can, recognize him by smell (and comments on this at least three times), and has outright stated that she loves him. Far from making her weak and dependent upon him and his power, however, this has inspired her to try and make her own spiritual powers more potent. In fact, her stated goal is to not look at his back in battle, but to try and fight side-by-side with him (this is also part of the reason she's so critical on herself for not being a better offensive fighter).

To sum up, at the point in canon Orihime is taken from, even though she still has some insecurity inside, she has mostly overcome her feelings of inadequacy and has become more confident in battle - confident enough to fight regular hollows side-by-side and go blindly charging into dangerous enemy territory with Ichigo and Chad. She eagerly runs to help Ichigo when she thinks he's been kidnapped, stands up to the two men who claim to have hurt her friend Ishida, goes without question back to Hueco Mundo to help Nel, and is proactive in checking on the group's mutual friend Chad when he goes missing for a brief time. She's still flighty and fun-loving, starting conversations about random things with Tatsuki and Ichigo, and still has her crazy daydreams. She's also achieved one of her stated dreams - to work in a bakery (part time, since she's still in school, of course). And she and Ichigo, Ishida, and Chad have all become closer friends than ever; they all share phone numbers and know how to get to each other's apartments. This is the Orihime others in My Little Jamjar should see - a fairly confident (at least on the outside), cheerful, helpful young woman with a crazy imagination and a taste for strange food.

Strengths: Orihime's biggest strength is the strength of her heart. Her kindness drives her to protect those she cares about and sometimes even total strangers. Because of her kindness, she wants to be strong - strong enough to defeat evil if she has to. Even if the person in question has been cruel to her, she will still defend them if someone tries to hurt them without provocation.

Her other strength lies in her imagination. Not only is it a very important part of her personality, it also helps her defuse tense situations, or enlist the help of others that she wouldn't have been able to otherwise. Her imagination also allows her to see solutions that less creative people don't.

Weaknesses: Orihime's biggest fear is being useless or a burden to her friends. This came to a head when her friends' mentor, Urahara, told her that as long as Tsubaki was broken, she was unfit to help them in battle. While this was a lie on his part - he was trying to keep her hidden from Aizen, unsuccessfully as it turned out - it was enough to send her over the edge and turn her into a crying, broken mess. She already had doubts about her abilities and about her feelings for Ichigo before this incident, but that was the push she needed to break down. Fortunately, Rukia offered to help train with her and told her that Urahara was full of it; after that, she had a bit more confidence and slowly began to improve her abilities.

She also hates seeing her friends be hurt and will give almost anything to stop them from being hurt or injured. If she's unable to help them or restrained in some way, it has a big impact on her psyche. If she's given the option of watching them be hurt or sacrificing herself, she will sacrifice herself every time.

Possessions: Just her hairpins!
Pony/Animal Type: A Pegasus! Her powers are kind of like magic anyway!
Cutie Mark: Two blue flowers, just like the ones on her hairpins.
Pony Picture:

SAMPLES
First Person: Oh my gosh, hello everyone! Is everyone else here ponies, too? I haven't seen any humans at all! And you just use scrolls to talk to one another instead of cell phones? That's really fun! I wonder if I can draw pictures instead?

I have so many questions for all of you! Can the ponies with wings really fly? How do you open doors? What do you eat? How do you dress yourselves? How do you wipe when you go number two?

I'm sorry, that was probably rude of me, eh heh! If Tatsuki-chan was here, she'd have bopped me for sure! But... I'd really like to see her as a pony, too! How can I get people from back home here?!
Third Person: When Orihime awoke, she wasn't immediately aware that anything was different. She saw her hair lying around her, which was just the same as it ever was. But when she sat up, she realized that she was not anywhere near the same size as before. And her body felt different, as well. So when she looked down, her brain almost froze when she realized that she was no longer even human.

She gazed at her hooves in wonder, her muzzle dropping more and more open as she took in the rest of her body. It was all white, except for the orange and gold-streaked mane and tail. And on her rump was a picture of two blue flowers, just like the ones on her hairpins!

"I must be dreaming..." Orihime mumbled to herself. But then she popped her cheeks with her front hooves, her face turning serious. "Snap out of it, Orihime! You're a pony now! That means there's only one thing you can do!"

She came to her hooves, wobbling slightly before getting the hang of standing. Then a great big smile came over her face. This was almost like a dream come true!

"I have to go show all my friends! I can't wait to tell Tatsuki-chan!"