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[CHARACTER INFO]
CHARACTER NAME: Atsuko Jackson
FANDOM: Michiko to Hatchin
CHRONOLOGY: Atsuko is being taken from the end of episode 13, during which she decides to screw the rural punishment position she's been given and start chasing after Michiko again.
BACKGROUND: Set in a Latin-American world that's analogous to Brazil, Michiko to Hatchin is about. Well. Michiko and Hatchin. Hana Morenos is an orphan who knows nothing about her real parents and even less about familial love--her foster parents treat her like a welfare check at best and the family's personal workhorse at worse, and her siblings verbally and physically abuse her. Basically, her life blows, until the day when a strange woman crashes through her motherfucking window on a motorbike, lands on the breakfast table, and takes her away forever. The woman is Michiko Malandro, a self-proclaimed "sexy diva" who knows Hana's presumed-dead father, Hiroshi Morenos, from way back when. In the biblical sense. And she just escaped from the prison which she was thrown into, basically, because she was looking for Hiroshi. Michiko doesn't believe that Hiroshi is dead, and she wants to find him. And that's how Michiko and Hana, now nicknamed Hatchin, set off on an awesome Thelma and Louise style journey down the highways of pseudo-Brazil. Where does Atsuko Jackson come into play? She's the reason Michiko was in prison in the first place.
Atsuko and Michiko grew up in the same orphanage, and Atsuko was basically Michiko's puppydoggish follower from birth. They grew up together, they played games together, and they got in trouble together. And the trouble was Michiko's idea 99% of the time. As Atsuko got older and their pranks got more illegal, she grew to resent Michiko's control over her more and more, and eventually she was able to break away, becoming a police officer. When Hiroshi mysteriously disappeared and Michiko started making trouble, Atsuko was the one to arrest her and send her to Diamandra, the supposedly inescapable prison. Which she later escaped from. Atsuko was promoted to sergeant for her troubles, and abused her position accordingly. While Michiko was in prison, Atsuko occasionally tormented her, interrogating her personally, taunting her, and using her helplessness to smack her around. However, once Hiroshi's "death" was reported and Michiko was depressed, Atsuko also gave her a baby picture of Hatchin, knowing that it would give her hope again.
Once Michiko breaks out of Diamandra, Atsuko takes it upon herself to personally make sure she drags her back; after their first confrontation, however, Michiko manages to get her at gunpoint and escape. Angry and humiliated, Atsuko decides to work with Satoshi Batista, Hiroshi's old friend and partner and a crazy motherfucker in all respects. Satoshi is the head of the crime syndicate Monstro Preto, and he hates Michiko. After he captures her, Atsuko works out a deal where she'll buy Michiko off of him and they all go home happy. Except that it doesn't work out that way; instead, Atsuko's subordinate Ricardo double-crosses her and decides that it's much better to arrest Satoshi and Michiko without any pay-off. Unsurprisingly, this ends up in a motherfucking shoot-out. Michiko, who's had the shit beaten out of her and looks the part, escapes from the house where Satoshi was holding her, and she makes a run for it in a field--where Atsuko happens to be looking for her, with a crossbow. For the first time in eight episodes, the two women are face to face. Michiko calls Atsuko her friend, and asks her to let her go.
And Atsuko lets her go.
After this disaster, Atsuko and Ricardo are demoted to a post in a Ilha Azul, a rural town near a famous ruined city, where she starts to go stir-crazy. While she's on the job, she comes to pick up a captured would-be thief, only to find that she's a rebellious teenage girl who reminds her a lot of Michiko. Atsuko starts to get close to the girl, Vanessa, and they have a bunch of hijinks which aren't really important, culiminating in a daring search for a mythical golden vase underneath the ruins. Where the two of them find nothing and nearly die from carbon monoxide poisoning. But it does inspire Vanessa to go to the big city and find her aspiring musician boyfriend--which only reminds Atsuko of Michiko more. Realizing that finding Michiko is more important to her than maintaining her good name, she forces Ricardo to come along with her and search for Michiko in the "city of tomatoes", where a man calling himself Rock Morena (who looks exactly like Hiroshi Morenos hurrrrrr) is making a name for himself. That's the point where I'm pulling her from; afterwards, she continues to follow Michiko and Hatchin. In the latest episode, she has an encounter with Hatchin and helps her hide from police officers, then ditches Ricardo with thanks for his help. Since it's an ongoing series, however, I kind of... have no idea what she is going to do next.
PERSONALITY: Atsuko is straightforward, smart, and in-control; she's a model cop, until something gets her emotionally where it hurts. She takes most things very seriously, and she'll take protecting the city seriously too, once she gets used to it. Atsuko is used to knowing what she wants and getting it through her own hard work and influence. She doesn't want to be in thrall to anyone or anything, basically. After "breaking away" from Michiko, I think she wanted really badly to assert herself and prove to herself that she was her own person. Although that desire isn't as strong anymore, she's still very much her own person, and she doesn't like taking orders. That doesn't mean she's going to rebel, though; as a police officer, albeit a high-ranked one, she's grown very used to taking commands from other people. She just doesn't like it. And Atsuko is really, really, really easily annoyed when things don't go down the way she wants. In fact, she occasionally goes batshit and starts screaming MIIIIIICHIIIIIKOOOOOO while shooting down an elevator shaft.
Michiko is absolutely central to understanding Atsuko's character--partially because she's a secondary character in the series, but mostly because Atsuko is still deeply hung-up on Michiko, no matter how much she tries not to be. She needed to establish her independence from Michiko eventually, because even though she totally loves her in a platonic (and possibly nonplatonic, what do I know) way, she couldn't become nothing more than a sidekick who gives up her own opinions and freedom to stay with her. Atsuko remembers their friendship fondly, and deep down she is still Michiko's friend. I don't think anything is going to change that. Partially, I think she sent Michiko to prison less for revenge and more out of disappointment. Atsuko looooves Michiko despite her flaws, and she knows she's a good person. And she remembers her as an independent person, which I think is also key. Part of her disgust at Michiko doing all of this for Hiroshi, besides the "WHAT THE FUCK WOMAN YOU COULD HAVE ME AND YOU GET YOUR ASS SENT TO JAIL FOR THIS PASTY TOOL" factor, is that Michiko is supposed to be the one in charge. Despite Atsuko liberating herself from Michiko, she still has a perception of her as the strong, smart lady on top; how could she control Atsuko for all those years and act like such a controlled idiot over this guy? How could Atsuko let herself be the tagalong for someone who was so weak? How could he possibly be worth enough to make Michiko into what she became, instead of what she was when Atsuko was her friend?
So that's much of why she has so much disgust for Michiko in prison. And, of course, Atsuko wants to prove to her just how strong she's become, and how weak Michiko (who disappointed her and killed her expectations and made her feel like a fool, because how could she think she was so great when Michiko could go around and do this?) is now. She's childish, in her own ways. But she also loves Michiko. There's no doubt of that. She remembers their friendship happily, and even when she's in jail, and Atsuko is being a complete sadist psychobitch to her, she still gives her that picture of Hatchin. She gives Michiko hope, and she knows perfectly well what she's doing; because she's still her friend, and maybe a part of her really did hope that Michiko could break her way out. After all, that would be much more exciting, right? Chasing after her is really more satisfying than being a sergeant and doing cop stuff.
Atsuko can also be kind in her own somewhat prickly way, however; she cares deeply about Michiko when it really matters, despite her fixation on capturing her, and she has a similar soft spot for people who remind her of Michiko, like Vanessa. She doesn't express her emotions openly, but if she cares about someone, Atsuko will go through hell for them. She has a bit of a wild side, but without someone crazy to bring it out in her she's a very straightlaced person. She's also most definitely not a kid person, though she'll be civil to most children. Although she's much more polite than Michiko, Atsuko is still pretty self-centered at the best of times, and she doesn't have much patience for giving attention to people who she doesn't know. But still, anyone being really loud and obnoxious as a front is going to turn on her maternal/annoyed impulses like whoa.
CLASS: Atsuko is most definitely a hero, but she'll be more ambivalent about her position and keeping her tags; first of all, because she doesn't really care that much about enforcing the law in a city she doesn't know and has no position in, and secondly because Iron Man is going to rub her all kinds of wrong ways. But when push comes to shove, she's not going to stand by and watch people get killed.
SUPERHERO NAME: Whiplash
ALTER EGO: Atsuko Jackson, and she'll probably join some approximation of the police/neighborhood watchforce as soon as she can. Maybe a private eye?
POWER: Atsuko has absolutely nothing even close to a canonical superpower; even compared to Michiko she's pretty average.
COMMUNITY POST SAMPLE: Ricardo! The metal man must have given you one of these too. You know who I am. Respond to me immediately.
[there's a long pause, then an extremely irritated huff of breath.]
I mean it. You can't get away this easily, even if we've been--transported here. The job is still waiting, and if I find out you're ignoring me...
No--if Ricardo were here, he would report to me as soon as possible because he knows what I'd do to him. I'm alone here. And this is the only thing close to a police force. Well.
[all the communicator picks up are clanging sounds, like something heavy making repeated impact with something metal, for about a minute and a half. when she speaks again, she sounds a little out of breath.]
Do the names Michiko Malandro, Monstro Preto, or Fantasma mean anything to anyone here on this network? Or maybe Diamandra rings a bell. If they do, tell me why and what they mean to you. If not... tell me where the hell I am. If Iron Man wants me to eliminate crime, fine. I'll do it--I'm one of the best at it, actually. But that doesn't mean I'm going to stick around if there's a way out of here. I'm very busy. That's all I have to say at this point in time.
THIRD PERSON: Where the hell was Ricardo? More importantly, where the hell was this?
Taking a deep, long drag on her cigarette, Atsuko cast her gaze down the length of the dirty sidestreet, looking for any markers that might give her even the slightest indication of where the fuck she was. She was probably--definitely--glaring at the people passing by, but at this point civility was a grace she wasn't going to waste time on. The whole situation was completely ridiculous, and the absolute last thing she needed. What the hell kind of hero was she? Atsuko was a good cop, sure--a really good cop--but that didn't make her a hero out of the pages of some comic, like that robot bastard seemed to think. She didn't have any powers, she didn't even understand English very well, and she didn't want to spend her time on protecting a city she'd never heard of. It had been different in Vermelha, where Atsuko had grown up. When you knew a city and knew the people, it was something else entirely; there was a connection and a sense of protection that couldn't be replicated by some douchebag in a metal suit. Anyway, she had much more important things to do. Like--it was always the first thing on her mind, wasn't it?--rearresting Michiko Malandro.
She had been so close to catching her, too; Michiko would definitely have noticed that picture, Atsuko was sure of it. While she was sitting on her ass and smoking, Michiko and Hana Morenos were well on their way to find the man calling himself Rock Morena, born Hiroshi Morenos. Hana's father, Michiko's... ugh. She didn't need to think about that shit so early in the morning. But Ricardo definitely wasn't going to chase after them himself unless she was there to force him along--he probably wouldn't even give the tip-off to any of the other cops unless he realized that it would benefit him. They were going to get away scot-free without her there, and it made her mad enough to spit. And what if they actually did find Hiroshi? The thought of Michiko devoting herself blindly to him, the way she had twelve years ago, was just revolting. Hiroshi wasn't a man you could rely on, and Michiko probably knew it, but for some reason she was willing to overlook it. Was that love? Atsuko couldn't call it anything but stupidity, and yet somehow Michiko still managed to be--whatever. She had to stop losing her concentration to such stupid things. Thinking about it in Ilha Azul was one thing, but there just wasn't any point in going down that road when the people in question were worlds away.
Dropping her spent cigarette, Atsuko crushed it out under her heel, the gesture more than slightly murderous. Whatever that iron thing was, she was going to make him regret separating her from her work.