NIKAIDOU, SHIZUKA

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[attr="class","app-section-title"]Appearance

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Shizuka is very feminine in appearance; even his name is feminine even though there are some rare cases where the name was given to boys. He's not very tall for his age, he's around 5'5" and sports a rather lithe and slender figure that could make even some girls jealous. However he doesn't have a whole lot of muscle and it is very easy to confuse him for a young girl. Due to a very rare case of atavism, Shizuka's hair is very pale blonde, could almost be considered as platinum blonde but not quite. Due to this kind of strange phenomenon with his hair despite otherwise displaying common Asian traits he has been the target of some nasty jokes in his childhood formative years. In fact it's likely that he is physically weaker than a girl, despite the way he tries to carry himself as best as he could, his mannerisms still could come off as very demure and seemingly vulnerable.
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Shizuka has gotten accustomed to wearing clothes generally fitted for girls, because his body doesn't fit very well in boy's clothes, though on occasion he does wear the classic t-shirt and jeans combination on occasion. Due to some family influence, Shizuka's wardrobe is quite varied - naturally filled with more women and girls clothes than boys, though the latter is also there in some capacity also. He does not really care too much at this point about what others who aren't used to him wearing girls clothes is, mostly due to support from his parents, but it has still affected his personality a little bit making him more shy and not incredibly talkative. Though he has tried to present himself without talking as he has taken up the hobby of cosplay for a couple of years already, building up some manner of fame for himself being a guy who is pretty courageous about cosplaying as girl characters.

[attr="class","app-section-title"]Personality

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Shizuka isn't necessarily your typical quiet and reserved boy, while he may seem that way at a first glance, he is usually deep in thought about his next projects in cosplay or making clothes, or maybe he's thinking about what he'd like to do online when he is playing that hot new MMORPG that hit the market. In any case, his poor experiences at school as a young child oft mistaken as a dirty gaijin girl led him to become increasingly reclusive socially despite his looks. However he is trying his best to get over it and improve this behavior since his parents have been very supportive of him. As an only child, he was given all of the care by his parents and it's mainly due to their support that he has given his all into having a relatively optimistic outlook on life. Even though he once was the victim of a lot of bullying and sometimes felt that his looks were more of a curse, the love from his parents who seemed to take joy in their shared interests helped rekindle his love for life. As a result, despite Shizuka's shyness, he can seem quite approachable at times and doesn't generally act rude towards anybody.
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That said, you can tell at a glance that Shizuka is trying to be more confident in himself through his cosplay, though he rarely wears his own fashion, most of his cosplays are tailor made by himself (though he had received help from his dad for measurements) and it's through this that he tries to realize his goal of becoming a more confident person. He's not the kind of person to keep moping, though he can be quite demure and very innocent at times. As a result, he's very loyal to those he's made friends with and won't hesitate to back them up even if doing so might end up being out of his paygrade. He believes that doing good things will beget more good deeds, and he's the kind who would treat kindness back with more of the same, and to treat evildoing as just that - something deserving of punishment.

[attr="class","app-section-title"]History

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Shizuka is the only child of immigrant mother Annika and her husband, Ren, who met each other at a photoshoot. Ren is a man of quite a few talents, being a photographer, a fashion writer as well as someone who has worked under various world-class fashion brands in his younger years. Annika, nee Lindström at the time, was a beautiful model who fell in love with Ren Nikaidou because on top of his talents and connections, he could be considered as very handsome. She was willing to drop her career and hang onto the coattails of Ren, who continues to do jobs in photography while writing articles and reviews on clothing. While this might seem highly extravagant to those in the tight-knit circles of the fashion industry, it is mostly inconsequential to those who don't follow fashion or don't particularly care for it. As a result, when Shizuka was born, those things didn't really benefit him. Well, it was really a pleasant surprise when Shizuka grew up to have incredibly strong features for the path of a model, though when he was still young, he was often bullied due to these looks of his.
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Due to the bullying, Shizuka became very quiet and reserved, which greatly worried both of his parents. They continued to shower him with their love and support, telling him that he shouldn't be ashamed of the way he looked, and that he could use those looks as part of his talents in the future. Ren often shared with Shizuka as a kid about the stuff he wrote on fashion, which would end up being a big influence on Shizuka and would spark his interest in fashion. He would also engage in escapism by playing video games and reading manga and watching anime, which would eventually ignite his interest in cosplay and being responsible for making his own clothes. His desires to enter fashion as well as design and create clothing, even if part of it was for cosplay, made both Annika (who was a model) and Ren (who was a photographer and writer, as well as having had first-hand experience in clothing manufacture and design) incredibly happy. They both supported his interest with gusto and shared their own experiences with him.
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Encouraged by his parents' support, he idolized famous cosplayers and models on the internet and decided that he would follow in his parents footsteps and enter that glamorous world that they once did, and enjoy fame while at the same time improving his own confidence in himself. He learned how to sew and embroider when he was 12, getting tips and personal training from his dad. A year later, Shizuka entered the cosplay world with his first costume, he started a social media account "@willowmireska" and his first post was a picture of himself cosplaying as a brown-haired girl wearing a maroon and white Japanese-styled robe. The trademark red ribbon tying his hair into a rather big ponytail was a recognizing mark, and in his social media profile, clarified that he was indeed a guy. This caused a surge in popularity amongst a certain demographic of users.
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Shizuka was enrolled into Mishiro High School, mostly because due to her past experiences, Annika and Ren both agreed that an environment like that of Futaba High School wouldn't be very healthy for Shizuka's current personality, so they decided to enroll him there because the environment seemed more casual and easygoing. Shizuka is currently in his third year of school, doing reasonably well in his studies amidst working on his regular cosplay projects and now currently studying photography from his dad, which would help him not only study himself as a cosplayer but also would allow him to photograph other models or cosplayers and even potentially make money out of it.

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[attr="class","app-section-title"]Notes

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dude looks like a lady