Fumiko Shimizu a.k.a Stephanie De Jesus - image 1 - student project

(Note: Art is Mine)

Description:

Fumiko is a 5’5” tall 23 year old woman with slightly tanned skin and green eyes. She has light brown hair that she often ties to a neat ponytail. Due to her volleyball training, she has a rather athletic body. While she hasn’t reached the point that she has six-packed abs, she definitely has developed some muscles.

Fumiko, by herself, mostly likes to keep herself layered. Be in the comfort of the warm cloth and silky smooth fabric of her slightly oversized garments.Of course, after stepping out, she has to be a different person. Anyone in school would always see Fumiko in her varsity uniform. Bearing the school’s colors of gray, black, and red. Handpicking the number ‘5’ in the honor of late best friend’s birthday (5/5) to be her varsity number. She puts up the facade that she *is* her best friend, living the life that she would’ve wanted.

Personality traits:

Fumiko is a calm and composed woman, who tries to be sociable around others, always in for a nice talk with someone. Indeed, she loves talking, and tries to empathise with people as much as she can.

However, she doesn’t open up to people often, and rarely shows many emotions, which doesn’t help her in the empathizing department. Thing is, psychologist and all, she's never been good at socializing and at expressing her own feelings. Even if inside she's feeling like throwing up, all you'll see is her face becoming a little disgusted; likewise, if she's mad, you'll see her become slightly upset- even a full-on wrath will take the form of tranquil fury.

Around others, she usually tries to be neither too formal nor too informal. She also is a good listener, and will gladly listen to people’s problems if they want to share them with her. She will try to be supportive, really wishing to form bonds and empathize- and, since she, as described, finds it hard to express emotions, she knows she will have to try harder than others would.

She also has a habit of writing things down in a little notebook she keeps with herself at all times. It helps her better, she says. In truth, this is another hint to her real passion- she uses this notebook to keep track of behavior, habits and the likes of people around her.

Due to her personality, however, she tends to be rather judgmental. While she does try to keep an open mind, and to be willing to change opinions about someone should she find she was wrong about them, she will naturally keep to her first impressions- though it will be somewhat harder to change them than it should be.

Habits/mannerisms:

You can often find her immediately taking notes about you in her notebook the moment that you two meet. She tends to have a horrible memory about people so she always keeps that notebook on her at all times.
She also avoids eye contact with people. She often struggles with seeing people in the eye. Even if she attempts to do so, it’s either brief or it would last long with the side-effect of her sweating a bit.

Background:

Fumiko was once just a normal, out-of-the-mill gal, living a seemingly normal life in a small town. She didn't have many friends, truth be told- she had always been the loner type, insecure and socially anxious, and the fact she had developed an interest in Psychology since she was very little didn't help either: such an interest was seen by her classmates and the other kids in general as odd and weird, as well as her preference for reading or playing the piano instead of physical activities. Thus, she found herself excluded, even bullied: ostracized and rejected.

Though one person was different, one decided to be her friend (which also helped put her parents at ease, that were worried about just how much and how often their poor daughter was alone)- one of the "cool kids", who liked going outside and playing volleyball. Their friendship was strong and close, even though their personality types seemed to differ. Truth be told, not even that was entirely true- sure, her friend, by the name of Stephanie De Jesus, liked going out and would grow up to become passionate about volleyball, even getting to drag Fumiko out from time to time to play with her, but he also enjoyed reading. Unlike Fumiko who focused on the subconscious and on psychology, Stephanie had a more rational mind, preferring to seek out the truth of things and mystery solving

Indeed, she was a promise in that field. Well-liked, friendly, and also intelligent: Fumiko grew to admire her pretty soon, perhaps even experiencing what she’d later on realized was her romantic orientation of bisexuality- orientation she’d decide to keep hidden, seeing as many insults she heard flying around, not at her anymore (since the day he made friends with Stephanie, she was simply left alone, not insulted anymore yet nor accepted into the “group” either), was that of “faggot”.

However, her “normal” life couldn’t last forever, of course.

One day when she was about 13, her friend and herself happened to be invited to a party. It was no big deal, just this one birthday party everyone was invited to. As usual, Fumiko kept to himself, talked with her friend mostly, some other people too... Nothing out of the ordinary. However, as they were returning home, accompanied by Fumiko's parents- it was late at night, and it being winter, it was dark and foggy- the two girls were talking and even laughing, the road quiet, not many drivers there. It looked like a normal day, like any other- but suddenly, out of a corner, came a driver.

As it happened, theirs wasn't the only party held that day. In a nearby place, at the same time as the kids laughed, talked and enjoyed themselves, a group of people- the kind you’d consider rather barbaric and perhaps even disgusting if you happened to glance at them on the bus, for example- also were having some big fun, drinking and shouting obscenities. What matters now, anyway, is how one of them had to go home at that time. Having drank a little too much, this man drove home in an alcohol-induced rush.

And so, out of a corner he came, ignoring the signal demanding he “stop”, slamming right into the unfortunate car that happened to be there, aka the one Fumiko was on. Now, this man’s vehicle wasn’t really in the best shape- it was rather old- and upon receiving a hit like that, the engine malfunctioned. And by malfunctioned, I mean that a spark was emitted where it shouldn't have, and the car quite literally blew up. Both the driver and her parents were hit by the full force of the blast, dying on the spot.

Fumiko and Stephanie, instead, were pushed out of the car by the explosion. The latter, already covered in burns of the third degree, flew rather high up in the air before slamming down on the cold asphalt a few metres below, and soon later passed on as a result of various internal hemorrhages and shattered spine and ribs.

On the other hand, Fumiko was more lucky (or perhaps, unlucky?) and survived. While she too was slammed away by the blast, her fall was broken by some bushes on the side of the road which managed to cushion the impact, and allow her to live, getting away with a few broken bones, such as her arms, a leg and even part of her ribcage, third-degree burns and a comatose state that lasted almost a year.

Upon waking up, of course, she asked where her parents were, and where Stephanie was. Hesitating, the doctors taking care of her eventually replied that they had all died in the car accident. Fumiko couldn’t believe it. She didn't want to. All the people she was close to, and cared about, all dead, claimed by the same accident. Somehow, the girl felt it was something of her fault, too.

She cried, she was desperate. Oh yes, she was. She'd lost everything. And so, as she lay on her hospital bed, covered in bandages and hurting from her chest, she took a decision. She was done with her old life. His old “self”, what she had been. If that was what it caused, then…

She had found her resolve to leave it all behind, to start over from scratch. , Her old name, habits, hobbies, personality even- all of that would change. Of course, she had to replace them with something- and what she chose what was most appealing and what she was sure would work. In short, what her mind instantly directed her to was the late Stephanie, her former best friend, who had always been more successful with others, a trait Fumiko so dearly admired. That was to be the new “Fumiko”- the old one, at least in public, was to have vanished.

After that incident, Fumiko was sent to an orphanage- of course, as her parents had died- and it was decided it would have been better for her if she had moved to a different town, one where she could start anew and try to forget the tragedy that happened to her. Coincidentally this was very lucky for her, seeing as she wanted to start anew as her friend as so on, a task most easily done around people not knowing you.

But inside her, she never could get rid of the “original” Fumiko. She simply locked it away, preferring her friend’s personality and life to her own, even fearing her own wouldn’t be accepted, while acting as her friend apparently netted her friends. And it worked, even though the imitation wasn’t really that perfect- while polite, friendly and helpful to others, she couldn’t quite get rid of the social anxiety, which led to her being less outgoing that her friend used to be.

And so, she kept doing what basically boiled down to her pretending to be something she was not, which put quite a bit of a strain on her, of course- she had to be careful not to make any slips, and remain consistent with that kind of personality traits, not even hinting at the fact they were actually fake. After all, if she did, all the work she’d done to become more accepted would be wasted!

Upon starting high school, she immediately recalled Stephanie wanting to be a part of the newspaper club and the volleyball team. A bit of a tedious task to accomplish but nonetheless, she did so. The volleyball team that she was on was pretty decent. She didn’t make any significant friends there but she climbed her way to being one of the MVPs the team is proud of. Then, there was the newspaper club, where she did and she met the only people who accepted her. The only significant people during these times are Ai Yamamoto, and Robert Lardizabal. Robert Lardizabal was the Editor-in-Chief during Fumiko's second year of being in the group and the club was slowly going downhill. The moment that he started becoming the EIC, she was silently outraged. She has been around the club longer and believed that she deserved the position more than him. Her anger towards the younger male grew when he started becoming aggressive towards them. He was starting to become demanding and assertive when it came to deadlines.

This was the only time she finally snapped. She couldn’t handle his horrible methods of leading anymore. While Ai, Robert, and another friend of theirs pursued to seek the truth about a rumored harasser around the school, she tampered with the evidence they gathered. With her tampering, they were pointing to Robert being the culprit they needed. She only assumed that he would be punished but what happened made her regret breaking out. He jumped due to the pressure of the people around him after the ‘truth’ was out. The club disbanded after Robert survived the fall and was confirmed in a comatose state. It was only then she decided to continue to improve her MVP spot and her studies until she finished high school and is now going up to college.

Of course, she got accepted to the first college she knew Stephanie would’ve wanted to join and pursued the course of Journalism. Of course, an internship was one of the requirements to pass the course. While it wasn’t required to do so so early on in her college life, she might as well get on. She found herself a part time job in a local news station. She was simply instructed to do simple stuff, only being able to help out outdoor news reporters to get info in case of the lack of staff. That doesn’t happen too often but still, it was experience. One time, the reporter she was with got sick moments before their live report was coming on tv. Not wanting to delay anything, Stephanie took their spot and did the live report for them. A bit shaky but still somewhat successful. While she was scolded on the way back for filling the spot out of the blue, the sick reporter thanked her for taking initiative. While the career in her job was going smoothly, so was her time in her new volleyball team. While she was intimidated for being the shortest girl in the team, she was still determined to improve her spikes and jumps to block every practice. This was to impress her coach, who was rumored to be a friend of the coach of Japan Women’s National Volleyball Team. She got the offer but still held onto it, needing the time to think about her decision as she now has to balance three responsibilities.

Truth be told, she had also, metaphorically, “carried on” the legacy of her friend, got herself a job to become a news reporter- though, her reports were nothing truly ground-shattering. She was mostly still a part-timer. She helped gather information for the news reporter before their deadline Her main focus always remained Psychology, which she was still passionate about. However, ashamed of that passion due to the events in his past, she decided to only take it as a minor.

The college became interested in the silent hard worker, about whom very little was known- Fumiko had been very careful to leave as little tracing back to her as she could. Understanding her wish to not have her true name public, and wishing to have the hard worker as part of their students, they did let her enter under the fake name of Stephanie De Jesus (the reasoning for this choice was both the fact she wanted to live up to what her best friend would've done this far in her life and she did want to get rid of the “old her” in public at least); although, on the school’s records, she still is Fumiko Shimizu

Flaws:

She’s forgetful at times. It’s why she keeps her notebook updated with the things she learns or understands and reread them everyday.
There are things that she wants to say or do as Fumiko. However, as everybody around her know her as Stephanie, she forces herself to suck it up and agree to things that may be against her moral compass.

Internal conflict:

The biggest conflict Fumiko has on herself is how she can separate her own identity from Stephanie’s at this point. She always feels like she’s mostly doing things with how Stephanie would’ve seen things. She found herself too deep in a ditch to dig herself back up and reveal who she truly is.

Julianne Audrey Jose

Upcoming Story Time Animator~!

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