ooc; dango info
Character's Name: Mitarashi Anko
Character's Age: 30
Character's Model: Aya Ueto ( link )
Year in School: Pff. Professor.
Major / Minor: Previously, Pyschology.
Clubs / Activities / Job?: Professor of Ethics and Philosophy; bartender.
Background History: Some people become punks. Others are born that way. It’s suspected that Anko was born a punk, although there are few people left to confirm what she was like before the age of 12. It’s possible she was a pleasant child with a delightful home life; the way she grits her teeth when she talks about her parents indicates otherwise. It’s clear that her family of origin were not hugely wealthy, or even necessarily comfortable financially before they dissolved. The early years were inconsequential, at any rate, apart from the three major events that shaped her mental landscape: her father’s death when she was 6, being deposited at an orphanage when she was 10 after her mother passed, and being dragged out of the world she knew at age 12 by the man she only ever knew as ‘Sensei.’
There was never much information passed between them about personal histories. She wasn’t the first under-aged girl he’d picked out of a home, perhaps even the ninth or tenth to wind up sleeping first on his spare futon and then in his bed. It didn’t matter in the slightest. True, he was almost constantly exposing her to the seedy underbelly of Tokyo culture; true, she had both tattoos and nearly permanent track marks before her 16th birthday; true, from what she could tell he was approximately twice her age and had no business seducing her into his bed night after night before she was close to legal. For the few years that he cared for her, however, Anko felt safe and loved. Sex and drugs were hardly the only stimulation she received during her time with him. Completely cracked out or not, her benefactor was an absolute genius; little punk or not, Anko was constantly crying out to be educated. She devoured the books he threw her way, blasted through the preparatory school he was able to send her to with some degree of ease, tackled whatever extracurricular activities were thrown her way to distract her with a hungry passion. True, she was often in trouble for running her mouth and more than once found herself in minor scrapes with the law. Her salient traits through her pre-college years, however, were distinctly her keen intellect and fierce exuberance for life.
She was 16 when he lost interest in her-or rather, 16 when she decided that she wanted more from life than what was being offered to her. The tidbits of information didn’t keep her mind occupied; the efforts of running drugs were no longer challenging. Going to university for an education preoccupied her completely. Her benefactor presented her with a choice: get happy with what he’d already given her or get out. Although she took the initiative to leave, her life thereafter was coloured by the ugly thought that he didn’t care enough to keep her with him when keeping her got harder to manage.
An exceptional girl even when cast out on her own, Anko battled her financial and educational situations with ferocity. Not a genius per se, she was nevertheless accepted into university early and graduated early, working her way through with a combination of legal and ‘sub-legal’ methods. Not ever one to be tied down to particularities, she settled on the idea of teaching fairly early on because of the theoretical flexibility to be enjoyed. It wasn’t until after her first year at the head of a classroom that she realized the real drive behind her goal-that she wanted to find other children who had been kicked around a bit by life and tug them forward kicking and screaming into a better future. Her own ‘teacher’ had given her the kick-start she needed to turn her into a successful adult; being allowed to teach her own way, to push young adults hard into the grownups they were meant to be without leaving nasty scars, became a driving passion.
Personality/Likes & Dislikes: Some people are risk-averse, and some people are thrill-seeking. Anko is thrill-seeking; there’s a part of her which simply cannot be content with what is safe. It’s come out in various outlets throughout her life, but it’s an omnipresent force behind her decision-making process. If there are two paths, she tends to dive toward the adrenaline rush.
Some people would describe Anko as loud. These people would be completely correct. She’s never known when to keep her trap shut, and almost even more rarely knows when to modulate the volume. There is nothing apologetic about the way Anko puts herself out in the world: when she arrives on the scene, people are meant to know about it.
She’s not simply loud in the clueless ‘I don’t realize I need an inside voice’ sort of fashion (although god knows when the last time she let someone make her use her inside voice was). Anko is loud because she wants people to know she’s there. A lot of her impulses-making a spectacle of her hair colour, constant displays of daring and disregard, always throwing herself into the middle of situations-comes from the desire not to be abandoned. The death of her parents and her subsequent parting from her adopted ‘family’ of thugs left her with a rather shaky self image. She tends to think of herself as someone forgettable, the sort of person who isn’t worthy of being kept in a real loving relationship very long. This faltering self-esteem often finds itself in conflict with her gregarious personality, causing her to lash herself out even more. It gives a lot of people the impression that she’s a little over the top; people are not wrong.
That isn’t to say that there aren’t moments when Anko can be quiet. They’re not happy moments. She tends to pull into herself when something upsets her deeply. Annoyances, inconveniences, and ‘youthful’ injustices are dealt with by use of loud vocal aggression and minor force, but the things that really get under her skin tend to take the wind out of her sails. She’s not a brooder by nature; it’s just that when someone says just the wrong thing or touches her in just the wrong place, her mind shrinks into a very childish place.
For all her loud, moody ways, Anko is ultimately simply very smart. She’s not the sort of genius who can pull every factoid she’s ever learned out of thin air, but she knows what she knows and she can usually figure out enough of what she doesn’t know to half-ass her way through a situation. Her mind likes to dabble around in different places, eager to keep itself occupied, so she tends toward being a jack of all trades over being a master of anything in particular.
Other Notes:
- Anko has two tattoos, one on her left shoulder blade and one just below the curve of her right hip. { bandwagon explanation}
- Her favourite team activity before university was an after school debate program.
- Since the age of 15, Anko has always had a pet snake of some sort. Her current companion is ball python named Nehan.
- Anko has been clean (for real) for about a year and a half, including alcohol.
Family
- Nehan: Anko's baby boy, a beautiful ball python she adopted four years ago. While she's home, he lives primarily on her person.
- Orochimaru: ...n
Professional
- Haruno Sakura: A premed student who took Anko's Intro to Medical Ethics course. Particularly feisty and fun to push the buttons of, particularly in rhetorical argument.
- Sabaku Temari: SOMETHING AWESOME INVOLVING THE BAR SHE WORKS AT.
- Tenten: A philosophy major Anko first met through the campus dojo as part of a first year demo day. The sort of person who's worth keeping tabs on.
- Most of the Kiddies: .......somehow or other. Anko's one of those professors who is "hip to the beat of the young folk" and generally okay with inserting herself into the lives of people who have no desire to be bothered.