[ooc] In-depth paper powers
This's a more in-depth essay-type thing on Anita's powers. If you're looking for the short and sweet, check out the meme before this post.
Introduction
Anita uses paper. Surprise surprise! For an ability that looks so natural for her to use, it's also difficult to describe. Throughout this I'll reference various Paper Masters. Some spoilers might be revealed.
Can you teach me paper?
Short answer: no.
I can't explain how paper power works. It's never explained fully in the manga or anime - they just use it. It's like a non-dominant arm: you don't use it unless you have to. But there are some things gleaned in the R.O.D manga.
A number of people in this world carry latent abilities that defy 'logic'. For example, there are Paper Masters, who can shape paper at will. Yomiko fights a woman with similar fire abilities in the first volume. These people are called Special Ability Users or Agents.
When these abilities were first discovered, certain groups forced these abilities to 'wake up' within their subjects. They 'trained' these potentials by making them fight other people in specially-designed matches that would awaken their abilities. (Example: Donnie and Ridley have letters painted onto their bodies and have to spell words by hitting their opponent.) Later torture was used to bring out these abilities, as seen in Manshu Academy. These methods were banned by international convention, but still continued underground.
This was the early way of training Special Ability Users. Donnie, Ridley and the Manshu A-students were trained like this.
I don't know how Paper Masters are trained now. Yomiko certainly wasn't tortured by Donnie (her teacher and boyfriend) and is probably the strongest Paper Master ever. No training is ever mentioned for the Paper Sisters or Sunny, but they obviously had to learn it from somewhere.
The ability is partly genetic. The British Library and Dokusensha were able to create 'artificial' Paper Masters, inserting genes into them. However, these 'artificial' paper users developed emotional problems - they couldn't work alone on missions. (The theory was that they 'lacked personal connection and communication'. I honestly have no clue what this means.) 'Natural' paper users like Yomiko have no real social problems outside of generic ditziness, but are extremely powerful. I don't know if Donnie and Ridley possessed genes: they probably did, but how did the British Library find them?
The ability is partly psychically-/emotionally-based. When her powers first awakened, Anita's life was in danger. She was able to summon a barrier out of paper to protect herself from an explosion. She didn't know how, she just did.
The ability relies on a love of books. Anita hates books. This in itself is quite odd, as all Paper Masters except for Anita are rabid bibliomaniacs. Coincidentally, Anita's a poor paper user. Michelle, Maggie and Yomiko would pwn her any day of the week. The exceptions here are Ridley and Sunny, but they're psycho.
The ability can be taught. Anita can't/won't teach you, however, unless your character has already demonstrated some abilities. This isn't an ability your character can magically develop on his/her own - you either have it or you don't, and Anita knows that it's a very, very unique talent.
What can she do?
Anita's repertoire, in order from strongest/most serious ability to weakest/least serious:
Blades: Anita's specialty is to make paper daggers and go in for the kill, combining close combat attacks with random paper abilities. The blades are extremely sharp, able to shatter glass and slice through steel. In canon, Anita uses a piece of paper to cut through a building - concrete, steel and everything; also canon is slicing up steel restraints.
Sensors: Anita's favourite defensive tactic is to spread paper all over the floor. Through it, she can sense motion (seen when a piece of paper moves ever so slightly). This worked twice against invisible enemies, warning her where a gunshot would be coming from. At the same time, it makes it easy for Anita to pick up a weapon when she fighting on the ground.
Telekinesis: Anita can throw paper with her mind, but it requires touch or movement of some sort. In the first episode, Anita just had to poke a large stack of books to make a small eyehole; when she jumped through the stack, the books turned to paper and went out of her way. Throwing sheets of paper is a normal attack strategy (she rarely hits anything, though...). And in one incident, she was lying on a broken bookshelf and mentally throwing paper at an enemy.
Sticking: Anita can use paper like wallpaper, sticking a target to a surface. She can also 'chain' individual pages together to make ropes and whips.
Clothing: Anita can wear paper as clothing, and it's impossible to tell from normal clothing (animation budget cuts FTW?). It's a little uncomfortable to wear all the time, though. Anita wears a bodysuit underneath in case she's stripped naked, somehow.
Shields: Anita can deflect bullets with books, but not with single pieces of paper.
In addition, Anita is a skilled close combat artist, stronger than the average human. In canon, Anita has dodged a bullet at point-blank range. She combines paper with physical attacks; paper serves to aid her physical abilities, not be her main one..
Anita has the potential to do more, but she needs another Paper Master to help her (for example, flying a paper airplane to travel around the country). 'Natural' Paper Masters are able to do all these and more; 'artificial' Paper Masters have varying degrees of success with these (for example, Maggie is poor at blades but is excellent at shields and puppets). Anita likely hasn't been trained enough to unlock her full potential - I believe that there's a lot more she can do, since she is literally a child of the Paper Masters.
Armament
Anita wears two thigh holsters, where she can draw individual sheets of paper or link them together to form a chain. Several spares are in her cabin, in addition to two boxes of paper kept under her bunk. She wears the holsters around camp, every day, and they are fairly easy to see. In addition, Anita has paper under her clothes, easily drawn from her sleeves.
Limitations
Paper, as awesome as the ability is, isn't the perfect, unbeatable ability.
Water: douse her with water and, to borrow a quotation, she's a wet match. In canon, someone throw a glass of water at her and stops her in her tracks. Also canon is making a 'bubble' to escape an underwater building. Basically, this ability can fluctuate. I assume that Anita's paper has some resistance, depending on her paper.
Fire: Only Yomiko's and possibly Maggie's paper can resist fire. Just burn everything Anita throws at you. Hopefully Anita'll go all paranoia hysterics from it too.
Sound: Certain sound frequencies can create barriers against Anita's attacks. They don't stop her from using most of her abilities, though.
Kinetics: Anita needs some movement or touch. A throwing motion will pitch paper throwing knives; touching a couple of books can send the contents flying. Even just turning her head can move paper.
Consciousness: Anita needs to be conscious to move or manipulate paper. If knocked unconscious, any manipulated paper will still retain its form until altered by someone else.
Other Paper Masters: That's right, if you too are a Paper Master you can beat down Anita! Another Paper Master once stripped Anita's paper clothing off and tried to kill her with it. Against another Paper Master, Anita will lose.
Can this power be detected?
This is another 'um, I can't explain this properly' thing.
It could be detected. Obviously, there's something in the genes that gives paper users their ability. However, nobody - save for a select few scientists - will recognize it. On top of that, paper abilities don't just pop up out of nowhere - they have to be awakened and trained. If the psychic looks at personality, all Paper Masters have paper and books on their minds - but so do bibliomaniacs, and if every bibliomaniac in the world was secretly a Paper Master, we'd be neck deep in them. Clearly there's something to this power that's simply indescribable.
So, short answer: no, unless you've got a really special reason.
Will Anita tell me she's got paper powers?
Hell no. To put it in perspective: she treats her paper powers like how a lefty treats his lefthandedness. Do lefties go up to you and say, "Hi, I'm Bill and I can write with my left hand!", then proceed to do all sorts of lefthanded stuff? No.
Yes, Anita uses her paper powers, but she doesn't think much about them. She knows it's a little odd, but treats her abilities very casually.
Very few people should know about Anita's paper ability. She rarely uses it and doesn't show it off unless there's a reason to, such as a combat situation. In canon, no 'innocent bystanders' personally know that Anita has paper; even when Anita trashes the school library in a fight (complete with paper flowing out the windows), nobody ever mentions it to Anita or connects Anita to the incident. Maybe they do, but since it's never brought up in canon, I assume that all of Anita's friends are unaware of Anita's abilities.
If you didn't see the permission meme: no, you may not magically know about Anita's powers. I'd rather that you found out by watching or by rumour. To remind you of what I just wrote, the power appears to be completely unidentifiable except through genetic work, and even then one must be trained to recognize the genes.
Anita will be hesitant to confirm she's got paper powers. She just wants to be a normal kid. If you randomly question her about it, Anita will deny like crazy until the thread's locked, but if you mention it after you see her using her powers Anita will be less hostile about it.
So I've got Anita's body, can I use her powers?
This is a little sticky. If you bodyswitch into Anita and don't know she's got paper? Explain to me how you'd be able to access paper abilities when part of it requires you to actually know what you're doing.
If you bodyswitch into Anita and know she's got paper? Yeah, go crazy. Just follow the limitations and I could (almost) not care what you do. Anita took years to learn what she does naturally now. She's weak for a paper user, but please note that she hates books and is emotionally unbalanced: if your character doesn't go ballistic every other day and can walk past a shelf of books without reacting, I don't mind if you access her full abilities (and then some) right away. (And we've already established that camp is weird.)
I do, however, mind if you try to take over the world in her body. Just a little. Anita knows her abilities and she will stop you.
Introduction
Anita uses paper. Surprise surprise! For an ability that looks so natural for her to use, it's also difficult to describe. Throughout this I'll reference various Paper Masters. Some spoilers might be revealed.
Can you teach me paper?
Short answer: no.
I can't explain how paper power works. It's never explained fully in the manga or anime - they just use it. It's like a non-dominant arm: you don't use it unless you have to. But there are some things gleaned in the R.O.D manga.
A number of people in this world carry latent abilities that defy 'logic'. For example, there are Paper Masters, who can shape paper at will. Yomiko fights a woman with similar fire abilities in the first volume. These people are called Special Ability Users or Agents.
When these abilities were first discovered, certain groups forced these abilities to 'wake up' within their subjects. They 'trained' these potentials by making them fight other people in specially-designed matches that would awaken their abilities. (Example: Donnie and Ridley have letters painted onto their bodies and have to spell words by hitting their opponent.) Later torture was used to bring out these abilities, as seen in Manshu Academy. These methods were banned by international convention, but still continued underground.
This was the early way of training Special Ability Users. Donnie, Ridley and the Manshu A-students were trained like this.
I don't know how Paper Masters are trained now. Yomiko certainly wasn't tortured by Donnie (her teacher and boyfriend) and is probably the strongest Paper Master ever. No training is ever mentioned for the Paper Sisters or Sunny, but they obviously had to learn it from somewhere.
The ability is partly genetic. The British Library and Dokusensha were able to create 'artificial' Paper Masters, inserting genes into them. However, these 'artificial' paper users developed emotional problems - they couldn't work alone on missions. (The theory was that they 'lacked personal connection and communication'. I honestly have no clue what this means.) 'Natural' paper users like Yomiko have no real social problems outside of generic ditziness, but are extremely powerful. I don't know if Donnie and Ridley possessed genes: they probably did, but how did the British Library find them?
The ability is partly psychically-/emotionally-based. When her powers first awakened, Anita's life was in danger. She was able to summon a barrier out of paper to protect herself from an explosion. She didn't know how, she just did.
The ability relies on a love of books. Anita hates books. This in itself is quite odd, as all Paper Masters except for Anita are rabid bibliomaniacs. Coincidentally, Anita's a poor paper user. Michelle, Maggie and Yomiko would pwn her any day of the week. The exceptions here are Ridley and Sunny, but they're psycho.
The ability can be taught. Anita can't/won't teach you, however, unless your character has already demonstrated some abilities. This isn't an ability your character can magically develop on his/her own - you either have it or you don't, and Anita knows that it's a very, very unique talent.
What can she do?
Anita's repertoire, in order from strongest/most serious ability to weakest/least serious:
In addition, Anita is a skilled close combat artist, stronger than the average human. In canon, Anita has dodged a bullet at point-blank range. She combines paper with physical attacks; paper serves to aid her physical abilities, not be her main one..
Anita has the potential to do more, but she needs another Paper Master to help her (for example, flying a paper airplane to travel around the country). 'Natural' Paper Masters are able to do all these and more; 'artificial' Paper Masters have varying degrees of success with these (for example, Maggie is poor at blades but is excellent at shields and puppets). Anita likely hasn't been trained enough to unlock her full potential - I believe that there's a lot more she can do, since she is literally a child of the Paper Masters.
Armament
Anita wears two thigh holsters, where she can draw individual sheets of paper or link them together to form a chain. Several spares are in her cabin, in addition to two boxes of paper kept under her bunk. She wears the holsters around camp, every day, and they are fairly easy to see. In addition, Anita has paper under her clothes, easily drawn from her sleeves.
Limitations
Paper, as awesome as the ability is, isn't the perfect, unbeatable ability.
Can this power be detected?
This is another 'um, I can't explain this properly' thing.
It could be detected. Obviously, there's something in the genes that gives paper users their ability. However, nobody - save for a select few scientists - will recognize it. On top of that, paper abilities don't just pop up out of nowhere - they have to be awakened and trained. If the psychic looks at personality, all Paper Masters have paper and books on their minds - but so do bibliomaniacs, and if every bibliomaniac in the world was secretly a Paper Master, we'd be neck deep in them. Clearly there's something to this power that's simply indescribable.
So, short answer: no, unless you've got a really special reason.
Will Anita tell me she's got paper powers?
Hell no. To put it in perspective: she treats her paper powers like how a lefty treats his lefthandedness. Do lefties go up to you and say, "Hi, I'm Bill and I can write with my left hand!", then proceed to do all sorts of lefthanded stuff? No.
Yes, Anita uses her paper powers, but she doesn't think much about them. She knows it's a little odd, but treats her abilities very casually.
Very few people should know about Anita's paper ability. She rarely uses it and doesn't show it off unless there's a reason to, such as a combat situation. In canon, no 'innocent bystanders' personally know that Anita has paper; even when Anita trashes the school library in a fight (complete with paper flowing out the windows), nobody ever mentions it to Anita or connects Anita to the incident. Maybe they do, but since it's never brought up in canon, I assume that all of Anita's friends are unaware of Anita's abilities.
If you didn't see the permission meme: no, you may not magically know about Anita's powers. I'd rather that you found out by watching or by rumour. To remind you of what I just wrote, the power appears to be completely unidentifiable except through genetic work, and even then one must be trained to recognize the genes.
Anita will be hesitant to confirm she's got paper powers. She just wants to be a normal kid. If you randomly question her about it, Anita will deny like crazy until the thread's locked, but if you mention it after you see her using her powers Anita will be less hostile about it.
So I've got Anita's body, can I use her powers?
This is a little sticky. If you bodyswitch into Anita and don't know she's got paper? Explain to me how you'd be able to access paper abilities when part of it requires you to actually know what you're doing.
If you bodyswitch into Anita and know she's got paper? Yeah, go crazy. Just follow the limitations and I could (almost) not care what you do. Anita took years to learn what she does naturally now. She's weak for a paper user, but please note that she hates books and is emotionally unbalanced: if your character doesn't go ballistic every other day and can walk past a shelf of books without reacting, I don't mind if you access her full abilities (and then some) right away. (And we've already established that camp is weird.)
I do, however, mind if you try to take over the world in her body. Just a little. Anita knows her abilities and she will stop you.