FULL NAME jo nurim

ع˖⁺ ocean whisperer nurim's affinity for the ocean is well known around simdong. no one takes a second glance at the figure in the water, wading just past the shore at 5 in the morning, a hoodie and flip flops strewn on the sand, knowing it's the same figure they'll see later that night on the pier, dangling her feet in the quiet waves. nurim loves the ocean, and no one can deny the connection she shares with the blue-green mass that surrounds simdong, nor can they explain the accuracy of her tellings on what the ocean is saying.

 

BIRTHDATE 0314, 21

ETHNICITY korean

 

GENDER cis female

UALITY heteroual

FACECLAIM jang gyuri

(backup:  seo jisoo)

 

STATURE 165 cm

APPEARANCE almond-shaped eyes, often crinkled into a tight eye smile, decorate nurim's oval face (once a little chubbier back in the day, now slim as a result of her aversion to city food), along with thin, pursed lips. dark brown hair, with soft waves akin to the ocean on a quiet morning, ends just above her chest and contrasts her slightly tan skin. her skin is clear and bouncy, thanks to many years of moisturizing in the ocean air, and her makeup use is minimal, having only started after she began uni.

 

STYLE simdong will often catch nurim in any variation of her staple outfit - a plain tee, the front tucked into a pair of mom jeans, a pair of rundown low-top converse, and a flannel to top. deep down, she has the desire to dress up, but she disregards it for the sake of workability and comfort, instead living out her cottagecore dreams vicariously through her nightgowns.

 

once in the city, nurim switches out her navy patterned flannels for pastel knit cardigans - one of the many little steps she takes in trying to adjust and grow in this new stage of her life. straight-leg jeans, cozy fall sweaters, and beige/off-white sneakers become common in her closet.

 

     

the average simdong citizen might compare nurim to waves breaking on the shore - a loud presence, never threatening or scary, but always known. to herself, though, nurim feels like a muted ocean...barely heard over the hubbub of tourists, reduced to background noise...having such a big responsibility in the family business from such a young age has definitely helped cultivate nurim into the hard-working, determined girl she is, but it's also taken away a little bit of the ability she has to think for herself. for nurim, her family and the restaurant come first. then the customers and her friends, then the kids...basically, she's at the end of that list, and it's become such an unconscious thing that she still doesn't realize it's an issue.

 

it might not help that she's so used to swooping in and saving the day...just a couple years helping run the restaurant was enough for nurim's parents to figure she was all grown up and perfect for the job, so a lot of responsibility has been dumped on her shoulders since then, and nurim is used to it. they may not know just how much they're burdening her, but they do know she's a big help - "oh, yeokshi, nurim!" "my nurim, what would we do without you?" the praise is sweet, but too much sweetness can be sickening. nurim feels a lot of pressure to solve things on her own (or just solve them in general), but there's a fine line there between pressure and duty. nurim thinks she can handle anything, knows she can handle anything - so she does. without thinking.

 

at this point, she's a little scared of what would go on in her mind if she did stop to think. deep down, nurim has no idea what she's doing. when confronted with issues, she tries not to get emotional and just let logic solve the problem, and while that's worked for most of the restaurant stuff that's come up in her life, how is she supposed to handle things outside of business? the ocean questions her about this, asking, "nurim, who besides me actually knows the real you?" nurim ignores this question, trying to avoid the fact that she feels like she lives life with a fake image as some poster child of simdong's favorite restaurant, wondering if the swiftness with which she handles customers and the quick wit she figures out business with are a fraud or have really become a part of her now.

 

in many ways, the restaurant is the core of nurim's being, but also the bane of her existence. it's brought her to where she is now, made her who she is, but she's not sure if she likes that. she loves the restaurant, no doubt, and definitely loves the ocean more than anything, but she just needs some time to love herself, too.

 

this is not to say that nurim isn't put together, though - the surface might be a little fake, but it's existent. smooth-talking customers has become a part of her - she's quick-witted, compassionate, wants the best for everyone, at the expense of her self. acting interested in people's lives, once a force of business habit, is now genuine curiosity. while she was a little more interested in, say, her friends and what was going on in their lives, she loves all of simdong and learns every day that there's still more she doesn't know about the small town. fake smiles and customer service, once the root of her identity crisis, have become pure optimism and hope for the future. especially after she comes back from seoul, jaded from city life and just missing some good ol' homemade food, nurim is more confident in what she wants and who she is. she loves her family and friends, loves asking the ahjussis in the fish market about their days, loves slow-roasting sweet potatoes by the fire, and, of course, loves the ocean.

 

nurim's existence has always been in harmony with water - water birthed in seoul, she feels right at home surrounded by the ocean in simdong. growing up, she spent much of her life in it, wading by the shore as a small child, now going for morning dives as a young adult. it's the ultimate comforting presence to her, and as she's gotten older, she feels like it's really become a part of her. nurim is notorious for her "conversations" with the ocean - she's frequently claimed that it speaks to her, and...well, in her mind, it really does. whether it's voices in her head or her conscience, she doesn't know, but nurim definitely has a connection with the ocean. it's advised her in troubling times, it's guided her when she's felt lost, and it's even forecasted the weather for her. the rest of simdong doesn't really know what to make with this information, but they love the jo restaurant and family, so she's saved from being labeled the city kook.

 

the jo restaurant has been around for what seems like forever and for nurim, really is forever. especially with her house lying right on top of the restaurant, loft-style, nurim was practically raised in that kitchen. she remembers doing homework there, the family having game nights there, kids running by and popping in to say hi...but most of all, she remembers her grandfather teaching her how to cook. days and nights she would spend watching him, until gradually she started to help him, and soon she was his prized assistant. they were a dynamic duo - seasoning and plating around each other as they manuevered through the cramped kitchen, testing recipes and improving quality for their customers. he was the master chef before her, and when he died, grandpa jo passed the baton (or spoon??) on to nurim. her father didn't mind - he loved that his daughter was invested in the family business and could see no greater gift than her involvement. she was 16 and practically running this establishment, but she enjoyed it! at least, she did.

 

it only took a couple years for nurim to realize she wasn't exactly satisfied with how her life was turning out. she was feeling immense pressure as the restaurant's head chef and found herself wondering if this was really what she wanted to be doing. she loved her family and she loved the restaurant and she loved simdong and they all loved her back...but was there more? even just with her morning dives, nurim has been able to see that there is so much more just beyond the shore, so what about that horizon? she had felt so confined in the bubble of simdong, almost like she was forced in, and she started wondering what it would be like to get away, to go see the world - and even to herself, this sounded ridiculous. simdong was home, so why would she ever see the need to go anywhere else? as the time to make college decisions approached, though, nurim started questioning that which had previously been so ingrained in her mind.

 

a chance look at her birth certificate seemed to make up her mind - march 14, 7:58pm, seoul, south korea. nurim felt like this was confirmation that she didn't belong here in simdong, that she was meant to go off and explore the big city. after a handful of years of just going to school and working at the restaurant, nurim is excited to shed her stuffy lifestyle in this small town and go see where she's really meant to be.

 

but alas, a handful of years in the city is all she needs to miss home again. it's exciting at first, but once she's had her fair share of fast food and dirty rivers, nurim finds that she doesn't feel quite like herself here, any more than she did back in simdong. it's been an interesting experience, but she's ready to go back home. because sure, her birth certificate might say seoul, but the ocean says, "nurim, don't forget where you came from".

 

she comes back excited, ready to leave behind the city that she has now realized is...not much at all (they're dirty, inefficient, wasteful with food, and have weird hierarchies that were never present in simdong), but a little nervous. and that's understandable, since she feels like she's changed. not in a bad way - she's ready to take over the restaurant, to put herself first sometimes, to stand up for herself, to let herself feel. but when things feel off, she starts to wonder if she's not the only thing that's changed.

 

life in seoul is, weirdly, somewhat quieter than life in simdong. nurim has friends, of course - her customer service smile has definitely come in handy with that over the years, but she finds that she doesn't make any ties as strong as the ones from home. yeah, nurim goes out on the weekends, yeah, she drinks with her department buddies, yeah, she's gone on a couple spontaneous trips to jeju with her housemates...and yeah, she's had fun, but nurim misses the bustle of the simdong market, the shouts of fishermen in the mornings, the grit of the old men she once cooked alongside in that small kitchen. she misses getting her fingernails dirty with sand, her feet wet from the waves. life in seoul is exactly what she expected (with the downside of the disgusting existence of what they call "fast food" and unsustainable packaging everywhere)), and she hates it for that.

 

but it's definitely quite the experience and she doesn't regret it! sometimes, she feels like she's in an alternate universe, and that mindset will be how she gets through her day. she lives in a large apartment with 5 other girls, arguably her closest friends in the city, though it's always been hard for them to have coordinating schedules that allow for even just one meal all together. nurim's classes typically ran sporadically throughout the day - she could have one at 9, then one at 1:30, then another at 5, and in between she would just study, grab meals with friends or study partners, or do homework. a lot of people didn't understand why she spaced out her classes like this, but nurim liked having stuff to do. once she got a part-time job around her junior year at a children's after school center, though, she started chunking her classes closer together, and soon, she was having morning - late afternoon classes, working, and then swimming. nurim liked to swim later in the evening when no one was there, so they wouldn't see the disappointment on her face at the chlorine in the water. she was nowhere near any oceans, and it was devastating.

 

once she comes back to simdong, there's no question about tiredness - she's up, 5am, out for her daily morning dive. it feels great to be in the ocean again, and the ocean has missed her, it says. she woke up fairly early in seoul, too, but nothing was more of a refresher than a good dive. after about an hour, she'll head back home, wash up, get changed (the slight change in wardrobe is a little surprising for many...given the small town and it's generally quiet lifestyle, anything is news), and open up the restaurant for the day. now that she's back, she figures she'll be head chef again, but her dad, who took over while she was gone, insists on splitting the responsibilities, which nurim isn't going to complain about. she spends the rest of her time reuniting with her friends and the little children and catching up with the ocean.

 

ع˖⁺ the little kids in simdong love nurim - she cooks them homemade lunches to take to school on their birthdays, she tells them stories she hears from the ocean, she shows them the best places to find shells on the shore...in short, she's quite the celebrity amongst the children.

ع˖⁺ once she got to uni, became the type of person to have a planner and have every hour filled in, even if one of the hours just says "lie down". in simdong, she found she was always busy doing something, so she carried that lifestyle with her into the city.

ع˖⁺ knows something about everyone. it's the habitual social butterfly in her, trained to ask people how their day is going, but it's fun! always amusing to hear about a new back pain mr. heo has discovered or the math test little yoseob decided not to cheat on.

ع˖⁺ attended chung-ang university as an urban planning major. she took a lot of classes in the environmental science area, though she plans on just taking over the restaurant in the future. it really was just a learning experience for her.

 

                                      

nurim's relationship with yugyeong blossomed one day when nurim asked the latter what she thought she should do about college and her major. she had just been trying to make conversation, and this one had really been a stretch - nurim had never thought about college prior (she was about 15 at the time) and had honestly been considering smoothly removing herself from yugyeong's presence in a second, since she knew her to be rather...difficult to make conversation with, but yugyeong started actually giving solid advice and asking nurim what she really enjoyed doing. it was stuff nurim had thought she always knew - "why don't you do something you like?" - but hearing yugyeong say it made her realize she hadn't been letting herself think about that sort of stuff. it was a really impactful moment on her journey over the next few years, and so nurim took a liking to yugyeong.

 

they would often run into each other after that and nurim made it a point to try exponentially harder to carry the conversation - and to her, yugyeong was like a clam. extremely difficult to open up, but once you've done it, there's a pearl inside! nurim loved getting to know more about yugyeong and finding out that there was more to her outwardly quiet self, like her history knowledge, her fear of the water (which nurim always gently tried to coax her out of...sometimes subtly bringing her to the topic of why she's scared, other times not so subtly trying to lead her to the pier...), her feelings about her dad. yugyeong is, in a way, the personified epitome of nurim's desires to always dive deeper beyond what you see.

 

nurim loves to drop by the tea house and see the traditional architecture and customs, because who doesn't love a good ol' wood-fired stove? (nurim: can you imagine slow roasting a goooood slab of meat over a steadily burning fire...the internal temperature would be so perfectly achieved! yugyeong: ...) yugyeong appreciates this interest, but once they come back from the city, the two might clash in little, silent ways. they're both glad to be back in simdong, but yugyeong a little more bitterly so. while nurim is grateful for her learning experience in seoul, yugyeong seems more jaded by it. while nurim's eyes have been opened to more ways of life (not that she agrees with all of them), yugyeong buries herself deeper in tradition. they don't talk about this (at least, maybe not right away), but nurim notices the change in yugyeong.

 

                                      

nurim has known jisung for a while, and she would say they're pretty close. they'd seen each other a lot growing up, since nurim spent so much time by the ocean and jisung was always coming by with deliveries. she got even more involved in his life around high school, when she would start going on the occasional dive with his family, and they've had their share of long conversations by the fish market. (she may have had a shallow little crush on him for a couple months, but she soon realized it was nothing more than that, and then she realized he had a thing for yugyeong anyways)

 

it was comforting to know that they both had similar mindsets going into college - they loved the family business, but they still wanted to get out and see what else was out there. what nurim was disappointed to find out, though, was his resulting attitude. he is more reluctant to come home, which nurim doesn't fully understand. she can see where he's coming from, but deep down, she remembers the young nurim, who would stare out her bedroom window at the fisherman boats, with a mix of wonder and envy brewing inside. she loved the ocean, and jisung got to be with it all the time! of course, to each their own - maybe he doesn't love it as much as her. nurim accepts this, but doesn't understand.

 

they are still amicable with each other, though - both having always been vibrant and well known throughout simdong, there was an unspoken understanding in their mutual desire to escape, and while nurim is still getting used to the change in his demeanor since he's come back home, she knows it's still son jisung.

THIS or THAT?

by water or by land
candle light or electric
by car or by foot
homemade or premade
afterlife or reincarnation
ghosts exist or no ghosts

friends or family

in a fairytale...
would your character be the hero, the damsel in distress, or the villain ? (answer as creator)
the damsel in distress

would your character say they are the hero, the damsel in distress, or the villain ? (character's answer.)
the hero
 

COMMENTS hulloOOoOoo here is the reconstruction of my original fisherman girl hehe yet again i had to rush to finish another app...sigh so i'm a little sad bc i feel like i didn't get to bust out everything i had planned for her but ! i still like her! just one thing - hopefully the construction of the jo family's house and restaurant is uh up to code with simdong's zoning laws LOL like basically if it doesn't work then you can change it!