biography

joohyun wasn't always a witch: just a regular school girl. she was as concerned with studies as her mom was of her looks: messy ponytails and unkempt uniform were almost always the talk at dinner time. young and rebellious, joohyun was unfazed by her mother's complaints. she was living her life to the fullest.

but things weren't meant to go as planned. she was from a day and age were higher education didn't matter for a girl: it mattered how she cooked and cleaned and looked. in her era, joohyun had to learn the hard way and rebellion would work for so long. it chipped away at her, and by the time she was done with highschool, she had a ten step skin care routine in place. she had outfits planned out far in advance. joohyun budgeted time and energy into her looks and her mother decided to nag her for other things.

holy matrimony.

marriage is a sacred thing, and ego death for joohyun. for her mother, it was where joohyun was meant to go after her highschool education. this backwards time lend itself to inevitable sacrifice and it was a choice between infanticide of baby girls or nurturing them into wives. to her mother, it was a sign that joohyun had made the full cycle and was ready for the rise of adulthood. for joohyun, marriage marks the day that she’s surrendered her sense of self to a more accomplished man and she doesn’t want to be forgotten, overshadowed. she wants to continue learning and be herself as she travels the world. she wants her beauty for herself, not for her mother to squawk about joohyun to the neighbhor’s son.

joohyun ran away. and fate had a weird way of playing it’s hand in her future because it dealt her a boon and a curse all at the same time. she only had a bundle of cash in her pocket, and her age—by law—allowed her to live on her own and her parents couldn’t put her in jail for running away. she threw her pride and familial values aside for her own good, and so she could live a proper life. joohyun couldn’t afford a hotel or rent unless she was willing to work.

sugar rush motel was different to her, though. “help wanted: females only,” and joohyun was sold. she sought out the staff members actively and joohyun from the 1980’s has remained unchanged. at first, she would only feed off those energies in the hotel sporadically as she fought with her family for true freedom, when she cared for their acceptance. it was then that the fiery joohyun came to grips with the fact that it was not going to happen: there was nothing left for her with that family. families aren’t tied by blood, and joohyun severed those ties. she fully dedicated herself to the motel and it’s dark energies, becoming a trickster of sorts.

joohyun now lavishes herself in the perks of being in the motel, smothering herself in spells and encapsulating her emphemeral beauty in the immortality she is granted by witchcraft. she's found her calling in her heaven on earth.

her powers

joohyun’s powers are pretty mild and are still developing, even nearly-forty years after joining the motel, taking into account that her immortality has been a constant for all the times she’s spent feeding off of lifeforces entering the motel. she’s aged enough, in her calculations, to be somewhere near twenty seven years old and joohyun has a decent grasp of the powers that have shown to manifest in herself.

aside from immortality, she has the ability to shift her eyecolor, haircolor, hair texture (to some degree) and her skintones (to a certain extent!) at will. originally, it started as blotching and horrendous albinism that took over for days, then she found it was increasingly easy to ‘summon’ these changes if she kept thinking or demanding them. she has the ability to make her cheeks and lips rosy and her hair black, sleek, and straight one day. she has the ability in the next minute to change it blonde, wavy, and her skin can look sunkissed. Joohyun doesn’t have much wiggle room with this power, if you look at the limitations she has currently, but it’s enough to allow her the ability to disappear into crowds if need be.

her other power is in small hexes and charms that she’s compiled in a small charmed journal she keeps with her. this journal is the start of her spellbook: she has many small notebooks like it. they are each thin, tattered, ordinary notebooks bought from a nearby dollar store. they have pastel plastic covers and look like diaries, but the runes within are jumbled letters she’s oriented so that only she knows.

the last power that joohyun has isn’t magic at all: it’s her ability to constantly learn and read and keep in touch with the times. the motel is small but it still has at least one computer. it still gets the newspaper. she still stays up to date. it sends her a rush of adrenaline to feel the times change and see what comes with the turn of every week, every year, and every decade.

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