Mio Hongo

[You die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain. --The Dark Knight]

It had occurred to her long ago that she was no better than the people she hunted. Forcing the memories of victims back onto their attackers was no less a rape, just one of the mind rather than the body. The first time she could have been forgiven, maybe—she had been angry that her friend had been hurt. But somewhere in the process she had stopped caring about the people she was "avenging" and started to view the memories of their trauma as mere ammunition in her desire to unleash her anger at the world on a "justifiable target."

[post time-skip. Uh, more on that later.]

A small but growing collection of songs I feel represent Mio. In no particular order; my comments are in parentheses.

1) Within Temptation - A Dangerous Mind
2) Within Temptation - Destroyed (Mio/her mother)
3) Assemblage 23 - Silence (Mio/Misao)
4) The Birthday Massacre - Looking Glass (I'm not sure why this is Mio song, but it just is. Might have something to do with the music video?)
5) Xandria - Beware

There were others, but they're not coming to mind right now.

I was your perfect little doll for 15 years. I ate when you told me to, I wore the clothing you told me to, I learned all of the womanly arts that you felt I needed to become the perfect lady. And yet none of these were good enough for you, because nothing I could do would measure up to Misao's perfection in your eyes.

I hated you for that. So I tried to rebel, like cutting the my hair and exposing my scar, the Hongo family's shame, to the world. I tried to get you to see that I was someone unique, not a poor copy of my sister. It didn't work.

And yet, now that I am away on my own, I find myself falling back into the habits that you tried to drill into me as a child. It seems I cannot escape you, even though I am universes away.

To the soul, there is hardly anything more healing than friendship. -Thomas Moore

What a joke. I would hardly call the relationship my parents have with any of their so-called friends "healing." To them, it's all about the social competition--who can throw the most lavish parties, who can invite the most prestigious guests, who can travel to the most exotic places on holiday, who can buy the most designer clothing. I fail to see any sort of benefit in that sort of behavior.

Besides, friendship is a liability. It opens you up to demands from people, and people always want something from you. I already dislike the demands my parents put on me, I don't need to open myself up to that from anything else.

On Friday at 3 o'clock on the dot Mio leaves work, by 3:15 he has arrived back at his house. He hopes that he has managed to arrive before Ran, it would be impolite to make a guest wait.

((As per the icon, Mio is a boy right now. :D))

It's near the end of the year, so Mio has selected some presents for people to convey her gratitude to various people who have done her favors over the past year. (Also, because it's the socially polite thing to do in Japan this time of year.)

Each gift has been professionally wrapped in the proper Japanese fashion, and for those who can't read kanji, the Nexus Translation field will helpfully translate the noshi (the white paper thing) to read: Year-end gift - Hongo.

For Ran: a gift set of gourmet British teas.

For Nagi: a cake.

For Daimon: a selection of authentic Kyoto sweets.

For Schuldig: a box of Godiva chocolates.

Each gift is hand-delivered to the recipient.

Knowing that Ran would likely supply the holly and the mistletoe, Mio looks for something else that would be easy and cheap to supply. (While it would be easy to buy a fruitcake, cake was much too expensive to buy for someone she hardly knew, even if it was (supposedly) to stop robots from blowing up the Nexus.) Jingle bells looked like a good bet. The local drugstore probably had some.

On the same aisle as the jingle bells were also boxes of strange tubes called "Christmas crackers". Hadn't that man with the scarf said something about those? At any rate, a box of 12 was only a couple of dollars so Mio figured she might as well not. Mio took the box as well as the bag of jingle bells and made her way back home.

Having never heard of Christmas crackers before this, Mio has no idea what the proper way to open them is, so she ends up disassembling them rather than pulling them open in the proper fashion. The collection of bad jokes she receives are as follows:

What do you call a penguin in the Sahara desert?
Lost.

Who hides in the bakery at Christmas?
A mince spy.

What's white and goes up?
A confused snowflake.

Why was Santa's little helper feeling depressed?
He had low elf-esteem.

On which side do chickens have the most feathers?
The outside.

Did you hear about the man who bought a paper shop?
It blew away.

What do you call Santa's little helpers?
Subordinate clauses!

What do you get if you eat Christmas decorations?
Tinsilitis!

What carol is heard in the desert?
O camel ye faithful!

What do you get when you cross a snowman with a vampire?
Frostbite!

Why do ghosts live in the fridge?
Because it's cool!

Why did the turkey cross the road?
Because he wasn't chicken!

Looking through the jokes, Mio couldn't decide which of them is the worst (were any of these even supposed to be funny?) so she decides to take all of them as well as the jingle bells back to the Doctor.

Today is Mio's 17th birthday! She hasn't announced this to anyone, but those who have managed to find out about it anyway can congratulate her here. :3

Mio just got her first paycheck a few days ago, and she needs to buy more clothes besides her one outfit and her school uniform. She figures she'll call Ran-san to ask her for directions to the Nexus Mall so she can do some shopping.

Ring ring Ran-san!

Mio is in the filing room, busily matching receipts and invoices to POs and checking them off on some sort of list. Her previous annoyance at this project has been replaced by a fierce determination to make everything is done properly and efficiently.

Basic research suggests that Mio has a Scorpio personality--revenge seeking, holds grudges, suspicious, unable to let things go, uses her powers to benefit only herself and steps on other people in order to satisfy her own greed, etc. (none of those were very complimentary at all, haha) Can anyone who has more knowledge of Zodiac signs give me a thumbs up/down on this analysis?

Also, for those muns who have chosen birthdays for their pups, is there anything else that would be a good idea to consider besides Zodiac sign or should I just pick a date at random within that range (October 23 - November 21, in this case)?

Mio stretches her arms in an attempt to loosen some of the tension in her shoulders. She'd been working on this filing project for nearly a week now, and she was finally almost done with sorting all of the papers. Mio mentally sighed in exasperation for about the thousandth time since she'd begun this project. Seriously, it was like someone had just tossed all of this paperwork in the boxes without even bothering to do any preliminary sorting. It was extremely unprofessional, she didn't know how they managed to stay in business with accounting that sloppy.

Mio finishes the stack that she had been working on and glances at the clock. 5 til noon. Time for lunch. Mio gets up and heads for the break room.

Mio pauses outside the entrance of Black Wolf Studios and double-checks the name against the business card Bad Ass-sensei gave her.  Yes, this is in fact the correct place.    Mio carefully puts the business card away in her bag, then spends a moment straightening her clothing and hair in an attempt to present the best possible first impression when she enters the building.

Mio approaches the reception desk and waits until she can catch the attention of the person working there.  "Excuse me, miss.  An acquaintance of mine told me that this company was searching for an accountant.  I would like to inquire if the position is still open."

Note: While most of the info in this post should remain OOC, feel free to have telepaths (I'm looking at you, Schuldig) learn any information that is related to something Mio has said IC.

Now that's she's returned to human form and has access to her belongings again, Mio would like to repay Ran for the lunch she bought Mio the other day. The main reason for this is because Mio dislikes feeling in anyone's debt, but subconsciously, Mio is looking to Ran for support with adjusting to the fact that she cannot go home.

Mio find a Convenient Nexus Pay Phone and dials the number Ran gave her.

Mio is slowly reaching wakefulness after taking a long, relaxing nap on Schuldig's sofa. Having eaten recently and gotten the best sleep she's had in what seems like ages, she is feeling content and in a good mood. Mio is drowsily uncurling herself from her sleeping position and beginning to stretch out when a small raincloud drifts overhead and begins to rain directly onto Mio.

As the raindrops hit Mio, she begins to shift from cat form to catgirl-form, and then finally to human form. Luckily for her, she is wearing her original clothing when she transforms back; her schoolbag also reappears nearby. Unfortunately for Mio, she is now soaking wet.

Mio looks up and glares at the cloud. She hated getting wet. Mio gets up from the sofa and stalks across the 'room'. The cloud follows her, cheerfully raining on her the entire way. Mio glares at the cloud even more. "Stop following me!" she complains at it.

The mischievous cloud sails off, giggling madly. Mio continues to give it a Death Glare as it leaves, radiating annoyance at it even after it is long gone.

Mio is feeling sorry for herself. She hates being a cat. Actually, hates might be putting it a little bit mildly. Mio absolutely detests being a cat. For one thing, her clothes, wallet, and schoolbag all disappeared off to somewhere when she got transformed. This means she had no access to her money or her credit cards in the Nexus.

Being flat broke for the first time in her life was not a pleasant experience. Mio was uses to the softest feather beds and the highest quality gourmet food. She had neither of these in the Nexus. Sleeping under bushes, in boxes, and behind dumpsters was not only horribly uncomfortable, it was unsanitary, and she kept having to defend her territory from other cats as well, meaning that she had not gotten anything near an uninterrupted night's sleep for the entire time she had been in the Nexus. On top of that, scrounging for food was demeaning. She was not going to beg for food, begging was not something a daughter of the Hongo family would ever consider. Unfortunately for her, Mio was not very good at scrounging, which led to her going hungry most nights.

Interrupting herself from her internal complaints, Mio goes to check around the Nexus Conroys to see if the old lady who runs this flowershop has put out any food today. The obaa-san is a little bit senile and often forgets, but Mio always comes by to check every day just in case she has put something out.