Persona 6 If Ideas

Hotaru

Name: Hotaru Yume
AKA: Taru~ Chan (by Nozomi)
Kanji: 夢 蛍琉
Romaji: Yume Hotaru
First Appearance: Persona 6 If
Affiliation: Main Cast (Name not chosen)
School: Online College Student
Date of Birth: 10/04/2003
Age: 20
Zodiac: Aries
Blood Type: A
Height: 152cm (5'0")
Weapon: Trident
Arcana: Priestess
Persona: Havfrue
                   Echo
                   Amphitrite
Japanese VA: Konami Kohara
English VA: Erica Mendez

Hotaru is a main character from Persona 6 If who's an online college student who studies music. She was a trained singer who became mute due to something in her past.

Design:

Hotaru is a petite young lady with straight light brown hair that she lets out on most occasions and light purple eyes to go with it. Hotaru is also always seen with her thin dark purple glasses frames.

During the colder months, Hotaru wears a purple hoodie under a light denim jacket. She also wears a pair of white high-waisted wide-leg pants and blue gray sneakers.
During the warmer months, Hotaru wears an oversized shirt with Cinnamaroll's face on it tucked into a light black maxi skirt and light blue sandals.

In the Other World, Hotaru's outfits change into an outfit inspired by the Harmonix outfits from Winx Club. The bodice of the dress is a mix of a light blue ruffle material with a shimmery lavender fabric wrapping around the bodice and giving it a halter design. The skirt consists of a light blue high-low petticoat skirt. On her legs is a pair of silver barefoot sandals that spiral up to the middle of her thighs and a lavender jewel on the bridges of her feet. Her hair is longer and tied on the end with a lavender ruffle scrunchie that looks like coral. Lastly, she has a thin silver tiara that spirals around the crown of her head and a lavender jewel in the center.

Personality:

Hotaru is a quiet young lady who has a burning passion for music. While she's mute, she shows her emotions with her facial expressions and the small gestures she would do. She would also carry around a notebook so that she can still communicate with others, as she doesn't fully understand sign language and struggles with it. Aside from her responses with others, her notebook is full of sheet music that she would create and play on her keyboard or guitar. Hotaru is particularly close with Seiya, as they're childhood friends, and Tomoya and Nozomi with both of them being the ones over 20 and the three of them would go drinking every so often.

Profile:

*No Spoilers*

Etymology:

Her first name, 'Hotaru', is made of two kanji characters, '蛍琉'. '蛍' means, 'firefly and glow worm', and '琉' means, 'jewel'.

Her last name, 'Yume' is made of one kanji character, '夢'. '夢' means, 'dreams, fleeting, and dark'.

Trivia:

- Hotaru's muteness is called traumatic mutism.
. There are very few times Hotaru speaks, one of them being in her Rank 10
. In the Other World, her Persona speaks for her

- Hotaru is meant to be a modern representation of the Little Mermaid.
. Her Persona, Havfrue, was how the Little Mermaid was referred to in the original Hans Christian Anderson story
. Hotaru's story is inspired by both the Hans Christian Anderson story, and the Disney retelling
. She is musically inclined, and also studies music
. Hotaru is described to have a beautiful singing voice and was professionally trained in singing

-Hotaru had the most scrapped ideas for her character.
. One being that she would be in a wheelchair to reference her Persona being based on the Little Mermaid
. Another idea was to make Hotaru the navigator. This stuck for a while, and when I made the idea to make her mute, she would speak to the others through telepathy with her Persona

- Hotaru's Japanese voice actress, Konami Kohara, also voices Mona from Genshin Impact, Chika Fujiwara from Kaguya-sama: Love is War, Akane Mizuno from Tsuki Ga Kirei, and many more.

- Hotaru's English voice actress, Erica Mendez, also voices Haruka Tenoh from Sailor Moon Crystal, Bernadetta from Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Retsuko from Aggretsuko, and many more.